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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



SHAKESPEARE'S 

OTHELLO, 

THE MOOR OF VENICE. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. henry N. HUDSON, LL.D. 



BOSTON, U.S.A.: 
PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY. 
1903 



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LiBHARYofCOfi'GFiESS 
Two Copies Recsived 

Jaw 2\i 1^09 

Copyright Entry ^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, hy 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the ofifice of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 



Presswork by Ginn & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 



^ 



INTRODUCTION 



Date of the Composition. 

THE Tragedy of Othello was entered at the Station- 
ers' by Thomas Walkley, " under the hands of Sir 
George Buck and of the Wardens," October 6, 1621, and 
was pubhshed in quarto the next year. It was also included 
in the folio collection of 1623, and was printed again in 
quarto in 1630. These three copies differ more or less 
among themselves : in particular, the folio has a number of 
passages, amounting in all to some hundred and sixty lines, 
that are wanting in the quarto of 1622. On the other hand, 
the latter has a few lines that are wanting in the folio ; while 
the quarto of 1630 seems to have been made up from the 
other two. On the whole, the text has reached us in a pretty 
fair condition ; though there are a few passages where the 
reading stands much in question, and gives little hope of 
being altogether cleared from doubt. 

Until a recent date, this great drama was commonly sup- 
posed to have been among the latest of the Poet's writing. 
But, within the last fifty years, two alleged manuscript records 
have been produced which would quite upset the old belief. 
One of these was given by Collier from " the Egerton Papers," 
showing the play to have been acted before Queen Elizabeth 
at Harefield, the seat of Lord-Keeper Egerton, in August, 



4 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

1602. The other, purporting to be from "the Accounts of 
the Revels at Court," and produced by Mr. Peter Cunning- 
ham, represents the piece to have been performed before the 
King and Court at Whitehall on the ist of November, 1604. 
Both of these records, however, have since been set aside by 
the highest authority as forgeries. So that we are now thrown 
back upon the old ground ; our earliest authentic notice of 
the play being furnished by Sir Frederic Madden from cer- 
tain manuscripts in the British Museum. It appears that in 
the Spring of 1610 Louis Frederic, Duke of Wurtemberg, 
visited England on a diplomatic mission. Among the manu- 
scripts in question, is an autograph diary, written in French, 
by Hans Jacob Wurmsser, who accompanied the Duke. The 
diary extends from the i6th of March to the 24th of July, 
16 10. Under date of April 30th, we have the following 
entry : " Went to the Globe, the place where comedies are 
wont to be played ; there the history of the Moor of Venice 
was represented." 

Two other authentic contemporary notices of the play 
have reached us, which ought, perhaps, to be here set down. 
The first is from the Accounts of Lord Harrington, Treasurer 
of the Chamber to James the First : " Paid to John Hem- 
inge, upon the Council's warrant, dated at Whitehall, 20th 
of May, 1 61 3, for presenting before the Prince's Highness, 
the Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine Elector, fourteen 
several plays." Then, among the plays specified in the 
account, are Much Ado, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, 
The Merry Wives, and The Moor of Venice. The other 
notice is from an elegy on Richard Burbage, the great actor 
of the Globe company, who died in 1619. The writer gives 
a list of the principal characters in which Burbage was dis- 
tinguished, and winds up with the following : 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

But let me not forget one chiefest part 
Wherein, beyond the rest, he moved the heart, — 
The grieved Moor made jealous by a slave, 
Who sent his wife to fill a timeless grave. 

The foregoing account obviously concludes Othello to have 
been written in 1609 or early in 16 10. And the internal 
evidence of style and manner is, I think, in entire harmony 
with that conclusion ; the diction, versification, and psycha- 
gogic inwardness being such as to speak it into close 
chronological neighbourhood with Cymbeline and Corio- 
lanus. So much is this the case, that Verplanck, writing 
while the account of performance at Harefield was still 
deemed authentic, thought the play must have been rewritten 
after that date, and perhaps made as different from what it 
was at first as the finished Hamlet was from the earliest 
copy. — The play has one item, or seeming item, of internal 
evidence, which it is not easy to reconcile with the earliest 
of the forecited notices. It is in iii. 4, where Othello says 
to Desdemona, 

A liberal hand : the hearts of old gave hands ; 
But our new heraldry is hands, 7tot hearts. 

This can hardly be taken otherwise than as an allusion to 
the new order of the Baronetage which was instituted by 
King James in 161 1; the figure of a bloody hand being 
among the armorial bearings of those who received the 
new title. And it is not a little remarkable that, even before 
the above-mentioned forgeries were exposed, Mr. Grant 
White still held it certain that this passage at least must have 
been written " after the creation of the first baronets." 
But, as this would draw the date of the writing down two 
years later than we have found it to be, there appears no 
way of accounting for the passage but as an after-insertion. 



6 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

Borrowed Matter. 

The tragedy was founded on one of Giraldi Cinthio's 
novels. Whether the story was accessible to Shakespeare 
in English is uncertain, no translation of so early a date 
having been discovered. But we are not without indica- 
tions of his having known enough of Italian to take the 
matter directly from the original. The Poet can hardly 
be said to have borrowed any thing more than a few 
incidents and the . outline of the plot ; the character, 
passion, pathos, and poetry being entirely his own. The 
following abstract of the tale will show the nature and 
extent of his obligations : 

A Moorish captain, distinguished for his valour and 
conduct, was in the service of the Venetian Republic. 
While living at Venice, his noble qualities captivated the 
heart of a very beautiful and virtuous lady called Desde- 
mona. He returned her love ; and they were married, 
against the wishes of her friends. Some time after the 
marriage, he was appointed to the military command of 
Cyprus, and was accompanied thither by his wife. He 
had for his ensign a man of a pleasing person, but a 
very wicked heart. The ensign was also married, his 
wife being a discreet and handsome woman, who was 
much liked by Desdemona ; and the two passed a good 
deal of their time together. Both of these went with the 
Moor to his command ; as did also his lieutenant, a' man 
to whom he was strongly attached, and who was highly 
esteemed by Desdemona for her husband's sake. The en- 
sign became enamoured of Desdemona ; but, on finding he 
could make no impression upon her, his passion soon turned 
to revenge : so he took it into his head that she was in love 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

with the Heu tenant, and determined to work the ruin of 
them both by accusing them to the Moor. The Moor was 
so strong in love for his wife, and in friendship for the Heu- 
tenant, that the villain knew he would have to be very cun- 
ning and artful in his practice, else the mischief would recoil 
upon himself. After a while, the lieutenant wounded a sol- 
dier on guard, for which he was cashiered by the Moor ; 
and the lady, grieved at her husband's losing so good a 
friend, went to pleading for his restoration. Thereupon the 
ensign began to work his craft, by insinuating to the Moor 
that her solicitations were for no good cause. On being 
required to speak more plainly, he directly accused her of 
preferring the heutenant to her husband on account of the 
latter's complexion. The Moor then told him he ought to 
have his tongue cut out for thus attacking the lady's honour, 
and demanded ocular proof of his accusation. The ensign 
then began a course of downright lying, but still managed so 
craftily as to draw the other more and more into his toils, 
and finally engaged to furnish the proof required. 

Now Desdemona often went to the ensign's house, and 
spent some time with his wife, taking with her a handker- 
chief which the Moor had given her, and which, being deli- 
cately embroidered in the Moorish style, was much prized 
by them both. The ensign had a little girl that Desde- 
mona was very fond of; and one day, while she was caress- 
ing the child, he stole away the handkerchief so adroitly 
that she did not perceive the act. His next device was to 
leave the handkerchief on the lieutenant's bolster; where 
the latter soon found it, and, knowing it to be Desdemona's, 
went to return it to her. The Moor, hearing his knock, and 
going to the window, asked who was there ; whereupon the 
lieutenant, fearing his anger, ran away without answering. 



8 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

The ensign was very glad of this incident, as it gave him 
more matter to work with ; and he contrived one day to 
have an interview with the Heutenant in a place where the 
Moor could see them. In the course of their talk, which 
was on a different subject, he laughed much, and by his 
gestures made as if he were greatly surprised at the other's 
disclosures. The interview over, and the Moor asking what 
had passed between them, the ensign then, after much feign- 
ing of reluctance, said the lieutenant had boasted of his 
frequent meetings with Desdemona, and how, the last time 
he was with her, she had given him the handkerchief. Short- 
ly after, the Moor asked his wife for the handkerchief; and, 
as she could not find it, this strengthened his suspicions into 
conviction : still, before proceeding to extremities, he craved 
the further proof of seeing the handkerchief in the lieuten- 
ant's possession. So, while the lieutenant's mistress was sit- 
ting at the window of his house, and copying the embroid- 
ery, the ensign pointed her out to the Moor. The two then 
arrange for killing both the parties : the ensign sets upon the 
lieutenant in the night, and wounds him ; but he fights man- 
fully, and raises an alarm, which draws a crowd to the spot, 
the ensign himself appearing among them, as if roused by 
the cry. Upon hearing of this, the lady speaks her grief for 
the lieutenant ; which so enrages the Moor, that he forthwith 
contrives her death. The ensign hides himself in a closet 
of her chamber ; at the time appointed he makes a noise ; 
Desdemona rises and goes to see what it is, and he then 
beats her to death with a stocking full of sand ; the Moor 
meanwhile accusing her of the crime, and she protesting her 
innocence. This done, they pull down the ceiling upon her, 
and run out crying that the house is falling : people rush in, 
and find her dead under the beams, no one suspecting the 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

truth of the matter. But the Moor soon becomes distracted 
with remorse. Hating the sight of the ensign, he degrades 
him, and drives him out of his company ; whereupon the 
villain goes to plotting revenge upon him. He reveals to 
the lieutenant the truth about the lady's death, omitting his 
own share in it ; the heutenant accuses the Moor to the 
Senate, and calls in the ensign as his witness. The Moor 
is imprisoned, banished, and finally put to death by his wife's 
kindred. The ensign, returning to Venice, and continuing 
at his old practices, is taken up, put to the torture, and 
racked so violently, that he soon dies. 

Such, in brief, are the leading incidents of the novel. Of 
course the parts of Othello and Desdemona, lago and 
Emilia, Cassio and Bianca, were suggested by what the Poet 
found in the tale. The novel has nothing answering to the 
part of Roderigo ; nor did it furnish any of the names ex- 
cept Desdemona. Some of lago's characteristic traits may 
be said to have been taken from the ensign: but this is 
about the whole of the Poet's obligation in the matter of 
character. The tale describes the Moor as valiant, prudent, 
and capable, Desdemona as virtuous and beautiful ; and 
states that she loved the Moor for his nobleness of charac- 
ter, and that her family was much opposed to the match. 
These are all the hints which Shakespeare had towards the 
mighty delineations of character in this play, as distinguished 
from the incidents of the plot. For, as Mr. White remarks, 
" of the complex psychological structure of the various per- 
sonages, and of their harmonious mental and moral action, 
there is not even a rudimentary hint in the story." It is to 
be observed, also, that Roderigo serves as a most effective 
occasion in the drama; lago's most inward and idiomatic 
traits being made to transpire upon him ; and this in such a 



lO OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

way as to lift the characters of Othello and Desdemona into 
a much higher region, and invest them with a far deeper and 
m.ore pathetic interest. 

Time of the Action. 

The island of Cyprus, where the scene of the drama is 
chiefly laid, became subject to the Republic of Venice, and 
was first garrisoned with Venetian troops, in 147 1. After 
that time, the only attempt ever made upon that island by 
the Turks was under SeHm the Second, in 1570. It was 
then invaded by a powerful force, and conquered in 1571 ; 
since which time it has continued a part of the Turkish 
Empire. The play represents that there was a junction of 
the Turkish fleet at Rhodes for the purpose of invading 
Cyprus ; that the fleet started towards Cyprus, went back 
to Rhodes, there met another squadron, and then resumed 
its course to Cyprus. These are historical facts, and took 
place when Mustapha, Selim's general, attacked Cyprus, 
in May, 1570; which is therefore the true period of the 
action. 

Relative Merits. 

In respect of general merit, Othello unquestionably stands 
in the same rank with the Poet's three other great tragedies, 
Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. As to its relative place 
among the four, the best judges, as might be expected, hold 
different views. In compass and reach of thought, it is cer- 
tainly inferior to Hamlet ; in the elements and impressions 
of moral terror, to Macbeth ; in breadth and variety of char- 
acterization, to King Lear : but it has one advantage over 
the others, in that the passion, the action, the interest, all 



INTRODUCTION. I I 

take their growth in the soil of domestic Hfe ; for which cause 
the play has a better hold on the common sympathies of 
mankind. It is indeed the greatest of domestic dramas. 
And I am apt to think it the best-organized oi all Shakespeare's 
plays. As a piece of dramatic architecture, Othello seems to 
me so nearly perfect, that I do not care to entertain any 
thought of how it might be better. On the whole, perhaps it 
may be safely affirmed of the four tragedies in question, that 
the most competent readers will always like that best which 
they read last. For my own part, I acknowledge a shght 
preference for King Lear ; but I find it not easy to keep up 
such preference while either of the others is fresher in my 
thoughts. 

Dramatic Use of the First Act. 

Dr. Johnson winds up his excellent remarks on Othello 
thus : " Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding 
incidents been occasionally related, there had been little 
wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regu- 
larity." Of course the meaning here is, that the play would 
have been the better for such a change. On the plan thus 
proposed, the whole of the first Act must needs have been 
withheld, except so much of it as might be cast into the nar- 
rative form. That Act is eminently rich in character, in life, 
in every thing indeed for which the dramatic form is most 
desirable. What narration could supply the place, for in- 
stance, of Othello's address to the Senate? Or, those early 
outcroppings of lago's wickedness, how could they have been 
turned into narrative without defeating the proper spirit and 
impression of them? Any attempt, indeed, to produce the 
best parts of that Act in the narrative form would have made 
the drama even more irregular than it is now. For in that 



12 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

case the irregularity would have been in the very substance 
of the work. And what is mere regularity of form good for, 
that it should be purchased at such a cost? 

But I have still deeper reasons for preferring the play as it 
is. The first Act is, I think, strictly fundamental to the others, 
as it ought to be, and hence necessary to a right understanding 
of them. It may be observed generally, indeed, that the Poet 
displays excellent judgment in his opening scenes. Nor have 
we any better instance of this than in the case of Othello ; 
which begins at the beginning, and goes regularly forward, 
instead of beginning in the middle, as Dr. Johnson would 
have it, and then going both ways. In the first Act we have 
a perfect seminary of the whole representation ; the prolific 
germs, so to speak, out of which the entire work is evolved. 
From the matter of the opening scenes we gain just such a 
forecast or preconception of the characters as is needful in 
order to make their after-course thoroughly intelligible. 
And the not duly attending to what is there disclosed has 
caused a good deal of false criticism on the play. This is 
especially true in the case of lago, who, from inattention to 
his earlier developments, has been supposed to act from 
revenge ; and then, as no adequate motives for such revenge 
could be found, the character has been thought unnatural. I 
undertake to say, indeed, that neither lago nor Othello can 
be rightly interpreted at all, without very special reference to 
what is unfolded of them in the first Act. For there it is 
that we are to look for the first principles or seminal ideas 
of those characters. 

We often speak of men as acting thus or thus, according 
as they are influenced from without. And in one sense this is 
true ; yet not so but that the man rather determines the 
motive than the motive the man. For the same influences 



INTRODUCTION, 13 

often move men quite variously, according to their several 
predispositions. What is with one a motive of virtue, is with 
another a motive to vice, and with a third no motive at all. 
On the other hand, where the outward actions are the same, 
the inward springs are often very different. So that we can- 
not truly understand a man, unless we first have some insight 
of his actuating principle, which may serve as a key, or as a 
clew, to his external behaviour. In brief, as a man's actions 
are the proper index of his character, so his character is the 
light whereby that index is to be read. And so, in the case 
of Othello, we must first have some insight of his character, 
and of the characters that act upon him, before we can rightly 
judge whether the main-spring of his action be jealousy or 
something else. So too in the case of lago : that he has no 
external provocation to the part he acts, does not necessarily 
make him unnatural ; for he may have an innate passion for 
mischief so strong as to supersede all such provocation. 

Delineation of lago. 

The main passions and proceedings of the drama take their 
^tart from lago. And the first Act amply discloses what he 
is made of and moved by. From what he there does, it is 
plain enough that his actuating principle lies not in revenge, 
but in a certain original mahgnity of nature. As if on purpose 
to prevent any mistake as to his springs of action, he is set 
forth in various aspects having no direct bearing on the 
main course of the play. He comes before us exercising his 
faculties on the dupe Roderigo, and thereby spilling out the 
secret of his habitual motives and impulses. 

We know, from the first, that the bond of union between 
them is the purse. Roderigo thinks he is buying up lago's 



14 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

talents and services. This is just what lago means to have 
him think. Here we have, on the one side, pride of purse ; 
on the other, pride of intellect. It is even doubtful which 
glories most, the dupe in having money to bribe talents, or 
the villain in having wit to catch money. Still it is plain 
enough that lago, with a pride of intellectual mastery far 
stronger than his love of lucre, cares Jess for the money than 
for the fun of wheedling and swindling others out of it. To 
trace through in detail the course and method of lago's 
proceedings with Roderigo ; to note, step by step, how he 
works and winds and governs him to his purpose ; would 
use up too much space. Wonderful indeed are the arts 
whereby the rogue wins and maintains his ascendency over 
the gull. During some parts of their conversation, we can 
almost see the former worming himself into the latter, like a 
corkscrew into a cork. And the sagacity with which lago 
feels and forescents his way into Roderigo is only equalled 
by the skill with which, while clinching the nail of one con- 
quest, he prepares the subject, by a sort of forereaching pro- 
cess, for a further conquest. 

A single item of his practice in this behalf is all I can stay 
to notice. The hardest part of his scheme on Roderigo is 
to engage him in a criminal quest of Desdemona. For the 
passion with which she has inspired him is hardly consistent 
with any purpose of dishonouring her. At first, he hopes her 
father will break off the match with Othello, so that she may 
still be open to an honest solicitation ; but when he finds her 
married, and the marriage allowed by her father, he is for giving 
up in despair. But lago again besets him like an evil angel, 
and plies his witchcraft with augmented vigour. Himself an 
utter atheist of female virtue, his cue is to debauch Roderigo 
with his own atheism. He therefore at the same time flatters 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

his pride by urging the power of money, and inflames his pas- 
sion by urging the frailty of woman ; as knowing that the 
greatest preventive of dishonourable passion is faith in the 
virtue of its object. Throughout this undertaking, lago's 
passionless soul revels amid lewd thoughts and images, like 
a spirit broke loose from the pit. With his nimble fancy, his 
facility and felicity of combination, fertile, fluent, and ap- 
posite in plausibilities, he literally overwhelms the poor fel- 
low's power of resistance. I refer to the dialogue where, 
finding the man's wits too thick for much argument, he keeps 
iterating the phrase, "put money in thy purse," and thus 
fairly beats down his defences by mere emphasis and stress. 
The issue proves that he knew his man perfectly. Nor can 
any thing surpass the fiendish chuckle of self-satisfaction 
with which he turns from his conquest to sneer at the victim : 

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse : 

For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, 

If I would time expend with such a snipe, 

But for my sport and profit. 

Roderigo, if not preoccupied with vices, is at least empty 
of virtues ; so that lago has but to work upon his unfortified 
posts, and ruin him through these. But the Moor has no 
such openings : the villain can reach him only through his 
virtues ; has no way to crush him but by turning his honour 
and integrity against him. Knowing his "perfect soul," he 
dare not make to him the least tender of dishonourable ser- 
vices, as such an act would be sure to kindle his resentment. 
To him, therefore, he uses the closest craft, the artfullest sim- 
ulation. Still he takes shrewd care not to whiten the sep- 
ulchre so much as to provoke a scrutiny of its contents ; not 
boasting of his moral scruples at all, but rather modestly con- 



l6 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

fessing them ; as though, being a soldier, he feared that such 
things might speak more for his virtue than his manhood. 

I must notice a few particulars of his practice on Othello. 
And I may as well begin by remarking how, to the end that 
his accusation of others may stand clear of distrust, he pre- 
faces it by accusing himself. Thus he affects to disqualify 
his own judgment touching the matter he has on foot : 

I confess, it is my nature's plague 
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy 
Shapes faults that are not. 

Here he of course designs the contrary impression ; as, in 
actual life, men sometimes acknowledge real vices, in order 
to be acquitted of them. Acting, too, as if he spared no 
pains to be right, yet still feared he was wrong, his very 
opinions carry the weight of facts, as having forced them- 
selves upon him against his will. When, watching his oc- 
casion, he proceeds to set the scheme of mischief at work, 
his mind seems struggling with some terrible secret which he 
dare not let out, yet cannot keep in ; which breaks from him 
in spite of himself, and even because of his fear to utter it. 
He thus manages to be heard, and still to seem overheard ; 
that so he may not be held responsible for his words, any 
more than if he had spoken in his sleep. And there is, 
withal, a dark, frightful significance in his manner, which 
puts the hearer in an agony of curiosity. All this will 
appear by a brief extract from the dialogue which follows 
close upon Desdemona's first urging of her suit in Cassio's 
behalf: 

lago. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady, 
Know of your love? 

Othel. He did, from first to last : why dost thou ask? 

lago. But for the satisfaction of my thought ; 
No further harm. 



INTRODUCTION. 1/ 

OtheL Why of thy thought, lago? 

lago. I did not think he had been acquainted with her. 

OtheL O, yes ; and went between us very oft. 

lago. Indeed ! 

OtheL Indeed! ay, indeed : discern'st thou aught in that? 
Is he not honest? 

lago. Honest, my lord? 

OtheL Honest ! ay, honest. 

lago. My lord, for aught I know. 

OtheL What dost thou think? 

lago. Think, my lord? 

OtheL Think, my lord ! — By Heaven, he echoes me, 
As if there were some monster in his thought 
Too hideous to be shown. — 'Thou dost mean something: 
I heard thee say but now, thou lik'dst not that. 
When Cassio left my wife : what didst not Uke? 
And, when I told thee he was of my counsel 
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst hideed / 
And didst contract and purse thy brow together. 
As if thou then hadst, shut up in thy brain, 
Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, 
Show me thy thought. 

lago. My lord, you know I love you. 

OtheL I think thou dost ; 

And — for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty. 
And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath — 
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more : 
For such things in a false disloyal knave 
Are tricks of custom; but in a man that's just 
They're close delations, working from the heart. 
That passion cannot rule. 

In this, and in much of what follows, the more lago refuses 
to tell his thoughts, the more he sharpens the desire of 
knowing them : when questioned, he so states his reasons for 
not speaking, as, in effect, to compel the Moor to extort the 
secret from him. For instance, in those well-known lines. 

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls : 

Who steals my purse steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing; 



1 8 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

*Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands ; 
But he that filches from me my good name 
Robs me of that which not-enriches him. 
And makes me poor indeed ; — 

in these lines, he of course means to have it understood that 
nothing but tenderness of others restrains him from uttering 
what would blast them. Thus he kindles the intensest crav- 
ing to know what the dreadful truth is that so ties up his 
tongue. For his purpose is, not only to deceive Othello, but 
to get his thanks for deceiving him : 

I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip; 

Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb ; 

Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me, 

For making him egregiously an ass. 

And practising upon his peace and quiet 

Even to madness. 

Here we have a pungent spurt of that essential malignity 
which causes lago to gloat over the agonies he inflicts. As 
a stronger instance of the same thing, take the passage where 
he indulges his terrible energy of expression directly on the 
Moor, and quietly sucks in the pleasure of seeing him writhe 
under it : 

lago. O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! 
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth make 
The meat it feeds on : that husband lives in bliss 
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; 
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er 
Who dotes, yet doubts ; suspects, yet strongly loves ! 
Othel. O misery ! 

lago. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough; 
But riches fineless is as poor as Winter 
To him that ever fears he shall be poor. 
Good Heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend 
From jealousy ! 

In this piece of virulent eloquence lago's fiendish heart is 



INTRODUCTION. IQ 

grimly sporting itself at the torments which his speech stings 
into the Moor. 

In further illustration of this character, I may observe that 
the healthy, natural mind is marked by openness to impres- 
sions and inspirations from without, so that the social, 
moral, and religious sentiments give law to the inner man. 
But our ancient despises all this. His creed is, that the 
yielding to any inspirations from without argues an ignoble 
want of mental force. The religions of our nature, as love, 
honour, reverence, fidelity, loyalty, domestic awe, all such, 
according to this liberal and learned spirit, are but " a lust 
of the blood, and a permission of the will." He scoffs at 
them. Hence, when walking amidst the better growths of 
humanity, he is "nothing, if not critical." So he pulls up 
every flower, however beautiful, to find a flaw in the root, 
and of course flaws the root in pulling it. His mind indeed 
is utterly unimpressible, receives nothing, yields to nothing, 
but cuts its way everywhere like a flint. This is well shown 
in his first interview with Desdemona. He goes to scorching 
the women, one after another, with his caustic satire. To 
stop off his flow of scofiing wit, she asks him, " But what 
praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed ? " 
whereupon we have this : 

lago. She that was ever fair, and never proudi 
Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud ; 
Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay ; 
Fled from her wish, and yet said, itow I may ; 
She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, 
Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly ; 
She that could think, and ne'er disclose her mind; 
See suitors following, and not look behind ; 
She was a wight, if ever such wight were, — 

Desde. To do what ? 

lago. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer. 



20 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

We have another characteristic outcome of like sort in the 
brief dialogue which he holds with Cassio about the heroine, 
just before he beguiles that noble-souled piece of infirmity 
into the drunken brawl which causes him to be cashiered : 

Cas. Welcome, lago ; we must to the watch. 

lago. Not this hour, lieutenant ; 'tis not ten o'clock. Our general cast 
us thus early for the love of his Desdemona, whom let us not therefore 
blame. 

Cas. She's a most exquisite lady. 

lago. And, I'll warrant her, full of game. 

Cas. Indeed, she's a most fresh and delicate creature. 

lago. What an eye she has ! methinks it sounds a parley of provocation. 

Cas. An inviting eye; and yet, methinks, right modest. 

lago. And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love ? 

Cas. She is, indeed, perfection. 

In these few short speeches of lago is disclosed the inmost 
soul of a cold intellectual sensualist, his faculties dancing and 
capering amidst the provocatives of passion, because himself 
without passion. Senseless or reckless of every thing good, 
but keenly alive to whatsoever he can turn to a bad use, his 
mind acts like a sieve, to strain out all the wine, and retain 
only the lees of womanhood ; which lees he delights to hold 
up as the main ingredients of the sex. And Cassio's very 
delicacy and religiousness of thought prevent his taking 
offence at the villain's heartless and profane levity. lago 
then goes on to suit himself to all the demands of the 
frankest joviality. As he is without any feelings, so he can 
feign them all indifferently to work out his design ; casting 
himself into the boon companion and the singer of pothouse 
songs with the same facility as into the dark contriver of 
hellish plots. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 



His Intellectual Virulence. 

I have spoken of the secret dehght lago takes in so fram- 
ing his speech of seeming friendship to the Moor as to make 
it rasp and corrode where it touches. The same wantonness 
of malignant sport appears in his talk to Cassio when the 
latter is smarting with the sense of having been cashiered for 
drunkenness. He there uses a style of concealed irony, as 
being the aptest way to sting his friend ; taking for granted 
that he has no sensibilities of honour to be hurt by what has 
happened. The dialogue, though richly characteristic of 
both the speakers, is too long for quotation here. But it 
would hardly do to omit the soliloquy which closes the scene, 
lago persuades the amiable and self-accusing lieutenant to 
engage Desdemona as his advocate to the Moor, and then^ 
being left alone, communes with himself as follows : 

And what's he, then, that says I play the villain ? 

When this advice is free I give and honest, 

Probal to thinking, and indeed the course 

To win the Moor again. For 'tis most easy 

Th' inclining Desdemona to subdue 

In any honest suit : she's framed as fruitful 

As the free elements. And then for her 

To win the Moor, — were't to renounce his baptism, 

All seals and symbols of redeemed sin, — 

His soul is so enfetter'd to her love. 

That she may make, unmake, do what she list, 

Even as her appetite shall play the god 

With his weak function. How am I, then, a villain 

To counsel Cassio to this parallel course. 

Directly to his good ? Divinity of Hell ! 

When devils will their blackest sins put on. 

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows, 

As I do now : for, while this honest fool 

Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes, 



22 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, 
I'll pour this pestilence into his ear, — 
That she repeals him for her body's lust ; 
And, by how much she strives to do him good. 
She shall undo her credit with the Moor ; 
So will I turn her virtue into pitch ; 
And out of her own goodness make the net 
That shall enmesh them all. 

By way of finishing this part of the theme, I will refer to 
a highly significant point which Verplanck was the first to 
notice. In one of his speeches to the gull, lago says, " I 
have looked upon the world for four times seven years ; 
and, since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an in- 
jury, I never found a man that knew how to love himself." 
This ascertains his age to be twenty-eight years ; though 
we are apt to think of him as a much older man. The 
Poet, no doubt, had a wise purpose in making him so young. 
It marks him out as having an instinctive faculty and apti- 
tude for diabolical machination; it infers his virulence of 
mind to be something innate, and not superinduced at all 
by harsh and bitter usage : in brief, it tells us that his ex- 
pertness in what he calls the " divinity of Hell " is an origi- 
nal gift, and springs from his having a genius for that kind 
of thing, insomuch that but little practice was needed to 
perfect him in it. Moreover his youth goes far to explain 
the trust which others repose in him : they cannot suspect 
one so young of being either skilled in villainous craft or 
soured by hard experience of the world ; while his polished 
manners and winning address gain him the credit of supe- 
rior parts, without breeding any question of his truth. " In 
a young man," says Verplanck, " the hypocrisy, the knowl- 
edge, the dexterous management of the worst and weakest 
parts of human nature, the recklessness of moral feeling ; 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

even the stern, bitter wit, intellectual and contemptuous, 
without any of the gayety of youth ; are all precocious and 
pecuhar, separating lago from the ordinary sympathies of 
our nature, and investing him with higher talent and blacker 
guilt." 

It appears, then, that intellectuahty is lago's proper char- 
acter ; that is, the intellect has in him cast off all allegiance 
to the moral reason, and become a law unto itself ; so that 
the mere fact of his being able to do a thing is sufficient 
cause for doing it. For, in such a case, the man naturally 
comes to act, not for any outward ends or objects, but 
merely for the sake of acting. — We thus have a cold, dry 
pruriency of mind, or a lust of the brain, which issues in a 
fanaticism of mischief, a sort of hungering and thirsting 
after unrighteousness. Accordingly lago shows no addic- 
tion to sensualities : his passions are concentrated in the 
head ; his desires are of the Satanical order ; so that he 
scorns the lusts of the flesh ; or, if indulging them at all, he 
prefers to do it in a criminal way, as finding more pleasure 
in the criminality than in any thing else. For such, I take 
it, is the motive-principle of Satan. lago seems indeed 
more fiendish than Milton's Satan : for when the latter first 
sees Adam and Eve together in Paradise he relents at the 
prospect of ruining the happiness before him, and prefaces 
the act with a gush of pity for the victims ; whereas lago, 
on witnessing the raptures of Othello and Desdemona at 
their first meeting after the sea-voyage, mutters to himself, 
as in a transport of jubilant ferocity, 

O, you are well-tuned now ! 
But I'll set down the pegs that make this music, 
As honest as I am. 

Edmund, the villain of Xing Lear, does not so much make 



24 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

war on Duty as shift her off out of the way to make room for 
his wit : seeing the road clear but for moral restraints, he 
politely bows them out of door, that so his faculties may 
work with entire freedom. lago differs from him in this 
respect : positive invasions of Duty are a sport and pastime 
to him ; he even goes out of his way to spit in her face and 
walk over her. That a thing ought not to be done is with 
him a special motive for doing it, because, the worse the 
deed, the more it shows his freedom and power. Hence, 
in one of his soliloquies, where he speaks of loving Des- 
demona, he first disclaims any unlawful passion for her, and 
then adds, parenthetically, " though, peradventure, I stand 
accountant for as great a sin " : as much as to say, that 
whether guilty or not he did not care, and dared the re- 
sponsibility at all events. Our great American actor, the 
elder Booth, in pronouncing these words, used to cast his 
eyes upwards as if looking Heaven in the face with a sort 
of defiant smile ; thus representing lago as acknowledging 
his Maker only to brave Him ! 

That lago prefers lying to telling the truth is implied in 
what I have been saying. Such a preference seems indeed 
to be a necessary consequence of his lawlessness of intellect. 
For it is a mistake to suppose a man's love of truth will 
needs be in proportion to his intellectuality : such inor- 
dinateness of mind may even find its chief delight in mak- 
ing lies, because what it most craves is room for activity 
and display. And so lago's characteristic satisfaction seems 
to stand in a practical reversing of moral distinctions ; for 
instance, in causing his falsehood to do the work of truth, 
or another's truth the work of falsehood. For, to make 
virtue pass for virtue, and pitch for pitch, is no triumph at 
all ; but to make the one pass for the other, is a triumph 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

indeed ! lago glories in thus seeming to convict things of 
qntjruth ; in compeUing Nature, as it were, to acknowledge 
him too much for her. Hence his adroit practice to appear 
as if serving-^oderigo while really using him. Hence his 
purpose, not merely to deceive the Moor, but to get his 
thanks for doing so. Therefore it is that he takes such a 
malicious pleasure in turning Desdemona's conduct wrong 
side out ; for, the more angel she, the greater his triumph 
in making her seem a devil. 

But I cannot sound the depth of lago's cunning : in at- 
tempting to thread his intricacies, my mind gets bewildered. 
Sleepless, unrelenting, inexhaustible, with an energy that 
never flags, and an alertness that nothing can surprise, he 
outwits every obstacle, and turns it into a help. By the 
working of his devilish arts, the Moor is brought to distrust 
all his own original perceptions, to renounce his own un- 
derstanding, and to see every thing just as lago would 
have him see it. And such, in fact, is the villain's aim, the 
very earnest and pledge of his intellectual mastery. 

We can indeed scarce conceive any wickedness into 
which such a lust and pride of intellect and will may not 
carry a man. Craving for action of the most exciting kind, 
there is a fascination for lago in the very danger of crime. 
Walking the plain, safe, straightforward path of truth and 
right, does not excite and occupy him enough : he prefers 
to thread the dark, perilous intricacies of some hellish plot, 
or to balance himself, as it were, on a rope stretched over 
an abyss, where danger stimulates, and success demon- 
strates, his agility. He has, in short, an insatiable itching 
of mind, which finds relief in roughing it through the briers 
and thickets of diabolical undertakings. Or, to vary the 
figure once more, it is as if one should be so taken with a 



26 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

passion for dancing over eggs as to make an open floor 
seem vapid and dull. Even if remorse overtake such a 
man, its effect is to urge him deeper into crime ; as the 
desperate gamester naturally tries to bury his chagrin at 
past losses in the increased excitement of a larger stake. 
For even so remorse, without repentance, serves but to 
augment the guilt from which it springs. 

His Motives Self-generated. 

Critics have puzzled themselves a good deal about lago's 
motives. The truth is, "natures such as his spin motives 
out of their own bowels." In Wordsworth's play of The 
Borderers, I find one of the characters described in a man- 
ner that fits our ancient rarely well : 

There needs no other motive 
Than that most strange incontinence in crime 
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him, 
And breath and being ; where he cannot govern, 
He will destroy. 

If it be objected to this view, that lago states his motives 
to Roderigo ; I answer, lago is a liar, and is trying to dupe 
Roderigo ; and he knows he must allege some motives, else 
his work will not speed. Or, if it be objected that he states 
them in soliloquy, when there is no one present for him to 
deceive ; again I answer, Yes, there is ; the very one he cares 
most to deceive, namely, himself. And indeed the terms 
of that statement clearly denote a foregone conclusion, the 
motives coming in only as an after- thought. He cannot 
quite look his purpose in the face ; it is a little too fiendish 
for his steady gaze ; and he tries to hunt up some motives 
to appease his qualms of conscience. This is what Cole- 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

ridge justly calls " the motive-hunting of a motiveless malig- 
nity " ; and well may he add, " how awful it is ! " 

Much has been said about lago's acting from revenge. 
But he has no cause for revenge, unless to deserve his love 
be such a cause. It is true, he tries to suspect, first the 
Moor, and then Cassio, of having wronged him : he even 
finds, or feigns, a certain rumour to that effect ; yet shows, 
by his manner of talking about it, that he does not himself 
believe it, or rather does not care whether it be true or not. 
And in the soliloquy which I have quoted, he owns that the 
reasons he alleges are but pretences, after all. He even boasts 
of the intention to entrap his victims through their friendship 
for him ; as if his obligations to them were his only provo- 
cations against them. For, to bad men, obligations some- 
times are provocations. The only wrong they have done 
him, or that he thinks they have done him, is the fact 
of their having the virtues and honours that move his 
envy. This, I take it, is the thought that " like a poison- 
ous mineral gnaws his inwards." In other words, they are 
nobler and happier than he is, and for this he plots to be 
revenged by working their ruin through the very gifts for 
which he envies them. Meanwhile he amuses his reasoning 
powers by inventing a sort of ex-post-facto motives for his 
purpose, the same wicked busy-mindedness that suggests the 
crime prompting him to play with the possible reasons for it. 

Character of Cassio. 

Cassio, all radiant as he is of truth and honour, makes a 
superb contrast to lago. His nature is, I am apt to think, 
the finest-grained and most delicately organized of all Shake- 
speare's men. He is full-souled and frank-hearted, open, 



28 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

unsuspecting, and free ; so guileless indeed, and so generous 
withal, that lago can get no foul suggestion to stick upon 
him : every thing of the sort just runs right off from his 
mind, leaving it as clean and sweet as ever. He cannot 
indeed resist the cup that brims and sparkles with good- 
fellowship ; he is too poKte, too manly for that ; and his 
deUcacy of organization renders him almost as incapable 
of wine as a child ; it takes hardly more than a thimbleful 
to overthrow him ; and his head, his heart, all his organs and 
senses, are intoxicated at once. But the same thing that 
makes him so sensitive to wine makes, him equally sensitive 
to the noblest and divinest inspirations of manhood. His 
sentiments towards Desdemona amount to a sort of religion ; 
no impure thought or image is allowed to mingle in his con- 
templation of her ; the reverent admiration, the purity and 
warmth of enthusiasm, with which he thinks and speaks of 
her, are all but angelic : in brief, his whole mind stands 
dressed towards her in the very ideal of human respect. I 
must quote a short passage by way of showing how choicely 
she has inspired him, and how his manliness blooms into 
poetry when she is his theme. The matter occurs at the 
time of her landing in Cyprus, whither Cassio had gone be- 
fore : 

Mont. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived ? 

Cas. Most fortunately : he hath achieved a maid 
That paragons description and wild fame ; 
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, 
And in th' essential vesture of creation 
Does tire the ingener. — How now ! who has put in ? 

Gent. 'Tis one lago, ancient to the general. 

Cas. He's had most favourable and happy speed : 
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, 
The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands, 
As having sense of beauty, do omit 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

Their mortal natures, letting go safely by 
The divine Desdemona. 

Mont, Who is she ? 

Cas. She that I spake of, our great captain's captain. 
Left in the conduct of the bold lago ; 
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts, 
A se'nnight's speed. — Great God, Othello guard, 
And swell his sail with Thine own powerful breath ; 
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship. 
Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits. 
And bring all Cyprus comfort ! — O, behold, 
The riches of the ship is come on shore ! 
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees. — 
Hail to thee, lady ! and the grace of Heaven, 
Before, behind thee, and on every hand, 
Enwheel thee round ! 

Coleridge justly notes it as an exquisite circumstance, 
that while Cassio, in his modest awe of the heroine's purity, 
thus gives her his knee, he makes no scruple of giving his 
lips to Emilia; though he does it in the presence of her 
husband, at the same time politely craving his allowance of 
the freedom. The truth is, he so much honours Desdemona, 
that he can scarce help kissing some one of her sex. In 
fine, the state of his mind towards Desdemona is such, that 
he feels safer and happier to live in the same town with 
her ; to walk the same streets that she walks in ; to kneel 
in the same church where she is kneeling ; and the sense of 
having her for his friend puts peace into his pillow, and 
truth into his breast, makes the night calmer, the day cheer- 
fuller, the air softer and balmier about him. On the other 
hand, he is to her "vahant Cassio," and '^thrice-gentle 
Cassio"; terms of address in which she but indicates a 
delicate and honourable regard of his manly virtues. 



30 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

Characteristics of the Moor. 

It has been the custom to regard Othello as specially 
illustrating the effects of jealousy. What force this passion 
has with him, may be a question ; but I am sure he has no 
special predisposition to it, and that in his case it does not 
grow in such a way, nor from such causes, as to be properly 
characteristic of him ; though such has been the view more 
commonly held. On this point there has been a strange 
ignoring of the inscrutable practices in which his passion 
originates. Instead of taking its grounds of judgment 
directly from the man himself, criticism has trusted too 
much in what is said of him by other persons of the drama ; 
to whom he must perforce seem jealous, because they know 
nothing of the devilish cunning that has been at work upon 
him. And the common opinion has been a good deal 
furthered by the stage ; lago's villainy being made so open 
and barefaced, that the Moor must have been grossly 
jealous, or grossly stupid, not to see through him : whereas, 
in fact, so subtle is the villain's craft, so close and involved 
are his designs, that Othello deserves the more respect for 
being taken in by him. 

Coleridge is very bold and clear in the Moor's defence. 
'' Othello," says he, " does not kill Desdemona in jealousy, 
but in a conviction forced upon him by the almost super- 
human art of lago ; such a conviction as any man would 
and must have entertained, who had believed lago's hon- 
esty as Othello did. We, the audience, know that lago is a 
villain from the beginning ; but, in considering the essence 
of the Shakespearian Othello, we must perseveringly place 
ourselves in his situation, and under his circumstances. 
Then we shall immediately feel the fundamental difference 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

between the solemn agony of the noble Moor and the 
wretched fishing jealousy of Leontes." And the account 
given of jealousy in this play would seem to acquit the 
Moor of having acted from that passion. lago rightly 
describes it as " a monster that doth make the meat it feeds 
on." And Emilia speaks to the same sense, when Desde- 
mona pleads that she never gave her husband cause of 
jealousy : 

But jealous souls will not be answer'd so ; 
They are not ever jealous for the cause, 
But jealous for they're jealous. 

A passion thus self-generated and self-nourished ought 
not to be confounded with a state of mind superinduced, 
like Othello's, by forgery of external proofs ; a forgery where- 
in himself has no share but as the victim. He discovers no 
peculiar aptitude for such a passion : it is rather against the 
grain of his nature, lago evidently knows this ; knows that 
the Moor must see before he'll doubt ; that when he doubts 
lie'll prove ; and that, when he has proved, he will retain his 
honour at all events, and retain his love, if it be compatible 
with honour. Accordingly he pointedly warns the Moor to 
beware of jealousy, lest, from fear of being jealous, he should 
intrench himself in the opposite extreme, so as to be proof 
against conviction. 

The struggle, then, in Othello is not between love and 
jealousy, but between love and honour. And lago's pro- 
ceedings are exactly adapted to bring these two latter pas- 
sions into collision. It is indeed the Moor's freedom from a 
jealous temper that enables the villain to get the mastery of 
him. Such a nature as his, so open, so generous, so con- 
fiding, is just the one to be taken in lago's strong toils : to 
have escaped them would have argued him a partaker of the 



32 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

Strategy under which he falls. It is both the law and the 
impulse of a high and delicate honour to rely on another's 
word, unless we have proof to the contrary ; to presume that 
things and persons are what they seem ; and it is an attain- 
ture of ourselves to suspect falsehood in one who bears a 
character for truth. Such is precisely the Moor's condition in 
respect of lago ; a man whom he has long known, and never 
caught in a lie ; whom he has often trusted, and never seen 
cause to regret it. So that in our judgment of Othello we 
ought to proceed very much as if his wife were indeed guilty 
of what she is charged with : for, were she eyer so guilty, he 
could scarce have stronger proof than he has; and surely it 
is no sin in him that the evidence owes all its force to the 
plotting and lying of another. 

Nevertheless I am far from upholding that the Moor does 
not in any stage of the proceedings show signs of jealousy. 
For the elements of this passion exist in the clearest and 
healthiest minds, and may be kindled into a transient sway 
over them ; and all I mean to affirm is, that jealousy is not 
the leading feature of Othello's character, much less his 
character itself. It is indeed certain that he doubts before 
he has proof; but then it is also certain that he does not act 
upon his doubt, till proof has turned it into conviction. As 
to the rest, it seems to me there can be no dispute about the 
thing, but only about the term; some understanding by 
jealousy one thing, and some another. I presume no one 
would have spoken of Othello as acting from jealousy, had 
the charge been really true : in that case, his course would have 
been regarded as the result of conviction upon evidence ; 
which is, to my mind, nearly decisive of the question. 

Accordingly in the killing of Desdemona we have the 
proper marks of a judicial as distinguished from a revengeful 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

act. The Moor goes about her death calmly and religiously, 
as a duty from which he would gladly escape by his own 
death, if he could ; and we feel that his heart is wrung with 
inexpressible anguish, though his hand is firm. It is a part 
of his heroism, that as he prefers her to himself, so he pre- 
fers honour to her ; and he manifestly contemplates her 
death as a sacrifice due to the religion which he believes her 
to have mocked and profaned. 

Othello not a Negro. 

The general custom of the stage has been to represent 
Othello as a full-blooded Negro ; and criticism has been a 
good deal exercised of late on the question whether Shake- 
speare meant him for such. The only expression that would 
fairly infer him to be a Negro is Roderigo's thick-lips. But 
Roderigo there speaks as a disappointed lover, seeking to 
revenge himself on the cause of his disappointment. Cox- 
combs, like him, when balked and mortified in rivalry with 
their betters, naturally fly off into extravagant terms of dis- 
paragement and reproach ; their petulant vanity easing and 
soothing itself by calling them any thing they may wish them 
to be. It is true, the Moor is several times spoken of as 
black ; but this term was often used, as it still is, of a tawny 
skin in comparison with one that was fair. The Poet has di- 
vers instances of this in his other plays. In fact, the calling 
a dark-skinned white person black is among the commonest 
forms of speech in the language. 

It would seem, from Othello's being so often termed " the 
Moor," that there ought to be no question as to what the 
Poet meant him to be. For the difference of Moors and 
Negroes was as well known in his time as it is now ; and 



34 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

that he thought them the same is no more hkely from this 
play than from llie Merchant of Venice, where the Prince 
of Morocco comes as a suitor to Portia, and in a stage-direc- 
tion of the old quarto is called " a tawny Moor." Othello 
was a Mauritanian prince. That he was a prince we learn 
from himself; that he was a Mauritanian we learn from lago, 
who in one place speaks of his purposed retirement to Mau- 
ritania as his home. Consistently with this the same speaker 
elsewhere uses terms implying him to be a native of Barbary ; 
Mauritania being an old name of one of the Barbary States, 
lago, to be sure, is an unscrupulous liar ; but he is too shrewd 
to lie when the truth will serve his purpose equally well, as 
it will in this case. With the Negroes, moreover, the Vene- 
tians had nothing to do ; but they had much intercourse 
with the Moors, who were a civilized, warlike, enterprising 
race, such as might well furnish an Othello. 

His Enthusiastic Heroism. 

The Moor's character, direct and single in itself, is worked 
out with great breadth and clearness. In the opening scene 
we have lago telling sundry lies about him ; yet the lying is 
so managed as, while effecting its immediate purpose on the 
gull, to be at the same time more or less suggestive of the 
truth : he caricatures Othello, but is too artful a caricaturist 
to let the peculiar features of the subject be lost ; that is, 
there is truth enough in what he says to make it pass with 
one who wishes it true, and is weak enough to let the wish 
shape his belief. 

Othello's mind is strongly charged with the enthusiasm 
of high principle and earnest feeling ; which gives a certain 
elevated and imaginative turn to his speech. In the de- 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

portment of such a man there is apt to be something on 
which a cold and crafty maHce can easily stick the imputa- 
tion of being haughty and grandiloquent. Especially, when 
urged with unseasonable or impertinent solicitations, his 
answers are apt to be in such a style, that they can hardly 
pass through an lagoish mind without catching the air of 
strutting and bombastic evasion. For a man like Othello 
will not stoop to be the advocate or apologist of himself: 
it is enough that he stands approved to his own sense of 
right j and to explain his conduct, save where he is respon- 
sible, looks like soliciting an indorsement from others, as 
though the conscience of rectitude were not enough to sus- 
tain him. Such a man is apt to succeed ; for by his strength 
of character he naturally creates a sphere which himself 
alone can fill, and so makes himself necessary. On the other 
hand, a subtle and malignant rogue, like lago, while fearing 
to be known as the foe of such a man, envies his success, 
and from this envy affects contempt of his qualities. For 
the proper triumph of a bad man over his envied superiors 
is to scoff at the very gifts that inwardly gnaw him. 

The hints, then, derived from lago plant in us a certain 
forecast of the^ Moor, as one who deliberates calmly, and 
therefore decides firmly. His refusing to explain where he 
is not responsible, is a pledge that he will not shrink from 
any responsibility where he truly owes it. At our first meet- 
ing with him, these anticipations are made good. Brabantio, 
on learning what has happened, rallies up some officers, and 
goes with them in pursuit of the Moor : lago sees thorn 
coming, and urges him to elude their search : 

lago. These are the raised father and his friends : 
You were best go in. 

Othel. Not I • I must be found : 



36 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

My parts, my title, and my perfect soul, 
Shall manifest me rightly. 

Here we see that, as he acts from honour and principle, so 
he will cheerfully abide the consequences. Full of equa- 
nimity and firmness, he is content to let the reasons of his 
course appear in the issues thereof. 

From his characteristic intrepidity and calmness, the 
.Moor, as we learn in the sequel, has come to be esteemed, 
by those who know him best, as one " whom passion cannot 
shake." For the passions are in him both tempered and 
strengthened by the energy of higher principles ; and, if kept 
under reason, the stronger they are, the more they exalt reason. 
This feature of Othello is well shown when the fore-mentioned 
pursuers come upon him, and Brabantio exclaims, " Down 
with him, thief! " Both sides draw and make ready to fight, 
and the Moor quiets them : 

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. — 
Good Signior, you shall more command with years 
Than with your weapons. 

Here the belligerent spirit is as much charmed down by his 
playful logic as overawed by his sternness of command. The 
very rhythm in which he speaks the order has, to my taste, a 
spice of good-humoured irony in it. And throughout the 
scene he appears 

the noble nature whose solid virtue 
The shot of accident nor dart of chance 
Could neither graze nor pierce : 

his intrepid calmness, his bland modesty, his manly frank- 
ness, and considerative firmness, are all displayed to great 
advantage, marking his character as one made up of the 
most solid and gentle quahties. Though he has nowise 



INTRODUCTION. 3/ 

wronged Brabantio, he knows that he seems to have done so : 
his feelings therefore take the old man's part, and he respects 
his age and sorrow too much to resent his abuse. 

Such is our sturdy warrior's habitual carriage : no upstart 
exigency disconcerts him, no obloquy exasperates him to 
violence or recrimination : peril, perplexity, provocation, 
rather augment than impair his self-possession ; and the more 
deeply he is stirred, the more calmly and steadily he acts. 
This '• calmness of intensity," as some one calls it, has per- 
haps its finest issue in his address to the Senate, where the 
words, though they fall on the ear as softly as an evening 
breeze, seem charged with life from every part of his being. 
All is grace and modesty and gentleness ; yet what strength and 
dignity ! the union of perfect repose and impassioned energy. 

And here I am reminded of a deeply-significant point of 
contrast between the Moor and lago, which ought not to be 
left unmarked. lago is morbidly introversive and self-explica- 
tive ; his mind is evermore spinning out its own contents ; 
and he takes no pleasure in showing things, or even in see- 
ing them, till he has first baptized them in his own spirit, and 
then seems chuckling inwardly as he holds them up reeking 
with the slime he has dipped them in. In Othello, on the 
contrary, every thing is direct, healthy, objective ; and he 
reproduces in transparent diction the truth as revealed to him 
from without, his mind being like a clear, even mirror, which, 
invisible itself, gives back the exact shape and colour of what- 
ever stands before it. 

Othello's Courtship. 

I know of nothing in Shakespeare that has this quality 
more conspicuous than the Moor's account " how I did thrive 
in this fair lady's love, and she in mine " : 



38 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

Her father loved me ; oft invited me ; 

Still question'd me the story of my life, ^ 

From year to year ; the battles, sieges, fortunes. 

That I have pass'd. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days 

To th' very moment that he bade me tell it. 

This to hear 
Would Desdemona seriously incline : 
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence; 
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, 
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear 
Devour up my discourse. Which I observing. 
Took once a pliant hour ; and found good means 
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart 
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 
Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 
But not intentively : I did consent ; 
And often did beguile her of her tears, 
When I did speak of some distressful stroke 
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, 
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 
She swore. In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange ; 
' Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful : 
She wish'd she had not heard it ; yet she wish'd 
That Heaven had made her such a man : she thank'd me ; 
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 
I should but teach him how to tell my story, 
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake : 
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd ; 
And I loved her, that she did pity them. 
This only is the witchcraft I have used. 

Here the dark man eloquent literally speaks pictures. 
We see the silent blushing maiden moving about her house- 
hold tasks, ever and anon turning her eye upon the earnest 
warrior; leaving the door open as she goes out of the 
room, that she may catch the tones of his voice ; hastening 
back to her father's side, as though drawn to the spot by 
some new impulse of filial attachment ; afraid to look the 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

speaker in the face, yet unable to keep out of his presence, 
and drinking in with ear and heart every word of his mar- 
vellous tale : the Moor meanwhile waxing more eloquent 
when this modest listener was by, partly because he saw 
she was interested, and partly because he wished to interest 
her still more. Yet we believe all he says, for the virtual 
presence of the things he describes enables us, as it were, 
to test the fidelity of his representation. 

In his simplicity, however, the Moor lets out a truth of 
which he seems not to have been aware. At Brabantio's 
fireside he has been unwittingly making love by his manner, 
before he was even conscious of loving; and thought he was 
but listening for a disclosure of the lady's feelings, while 
he was really sohciting a response to his own : for love 
is a matter wherein heart often calls and answers to heart 
without giving the head any notice of its proceedings. His 
quick perception of the interest he had awakened is a con- 
fession of the interest he felt, the state of his mind coming 
out in his anxiety to know that of hers. And how natural 
it was that he should thus honestly think he was but return- 
ing her passion, while it was indeed his own passion that 
caused him to see or suspect she had any to be returned \ 
And so she seems to have understood the matter; where- 
upon, appreciating the modesty that kept him silent, she 
gave him a hint of encouragement to speak7 In his feelings, 
moreover, respect keeps pace with affection ; and he in- 
voluntarily seeks some tacit assurance of a return of his 
passion as a sort of permission to cherish and confess it. It 
is this feeling that originates the delicate, reverential courtesy, 
the ardent, yet distant, and therefore beautiful, regards, with 
which a truly honourable mind instinctively attires itself 
towards its best object; a feeling that throws a majestic 



40 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

grace around the most unpromising figure, and endows the 
plainest features with something more eloquent than beauty. 
Before passing on from this part of the theme, it may be 
well to note one item of the forecited speech. Othello says 
of the lady, " She wish'd that Heaven had made her such a 
man." A question has lately been raised whether the mean- 
ing here is, that she wished such a man had been made for 
her, or that she herself had been made such a man ; and 
several have insisted on the latter, lest her delicacy should 
be impeached. Her deKcacy, I hope, stands in need of no 
such critical attorneyship. Othello was indeed just such 
a man as Desdemona wanted ; and her letting him under- 
stand this, was doubtless a part of the hint whereon he 
spoke. She is too modest to be prudish. 

Desdemona. 

The often-alleged unfitness of Othello's match has been 
mainly disposed of by what I have already said touching 
his origin. The rest of it, if there be any, may be safely 
left to the fact of his being honoured by the Venetian 
Senate, and a cherished guest at Brabantio's fireside. At 
all events, I cannot help thinking that the noble Moor and 
his sweet lady have the very sort of resemblance which 
people thus united ought to have ; and their likeness seems 
all the better for being joined with so much of unlikeness. 
It is the chaste, beautiful wedlock of meekness and mag- 
nanimity, where the inward correspondence stands the more 
approved for the outward diversity ; and reminds us of what 
we are too apt to forget, that the stout, valiant soul is the 
chosen home of reverence and tenderness. Our heroic 
warrior's dark, rough exterior is found to enclose a heart 



INTRODUCTION. 4I 

Strong as a giant's, yet soft and sweet as infancy. Such a 
marriage of bravery and gentleness proclaims that beauty is 
an overmatch for strength, and that true delicacy is among 
the highest forms of power. 

Equally beautiful is the fact, that Desdemona has the heart 
to recognize the proper complement of herself beneath such 
an unattractive appearance. Perhaps none but so pure and 
gentle a being could have discerned the real gentleness of 
Othello through so many obscurations. To her fine sense, 
that tale of wild adventures and mischances which often did 
beguile her of her tears, — a tale wherein another might have 
seen but the marks of a rude, coarse, animal strength, — dis- 
closed the history of a most meek, brave, manly soul. Nobly 
blind to whatever is repulsive in his manhood's vesture, her 
thoughts are filled with " his honours and his valiant parts " ; 
she " sees Othello's visage in his mind " ; his ungracious as- 
pect is lost to her in his graces of character ; and the shrine 
that were else so unattractive to look upon is made beautiful 
by the life with which her chaste eye sees it irradiated. 

In herself Desdemona is not more interesting than several 
of the Poet's women ; but perhaps none of the others is in 
a condition so proper for developing the innermost springs 
of pathos. In her character and sufferings there is a name- 
less something that haunts the reader's mind, and hangs like 
a spell of compassionate sorrow upon the beatings of his 
heart : his thoughts revert to her and linger about her, as 
under a mysterious fascination of pity which they cannot 
shake off, and which is only kept from being painful by the 
sacred charm of beauty and eloquence that blends with the 
feehng while kindling it. It is remarkable that the sympa- 
thies are not so deeply moved in the scene of her death as 
in that where by the blows of her husband's tongue and 



42 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

hand she is made to feel that she has indeed lost him. Too 
innocent to suspect that she is suspected, she cannot for a 
long time understand or imagine the motives of his harsh- 
ness ; and her errings in quest of excuses and apologies for 
him are deeply pathetic, inasmuch as they manifestly spring 
from her incapability of an impure thought. And the sense 
that the heart of his confidence is gone from her, and for 
what cause it is gone, comes upon her like a dead stifling 
weight of agony and woe, which benumbs her to all other 
pains. She does not show any thing that can be properly 
called pangs of suffering; the effect is too deep for that; 
the blow falling so heavy, that it stuns her sensibilities into a 
sort of lethargy. 

Desdemona's character may almost be said to consist in 
the union of purity and impressibility. All her organs of 
sense and motion seem perfectly ensouled, and her visible 
form instinct in every part with the spirit and intelligence of 
moral life : 

We understood 
Her by her sight ; her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, 
That one might almost say her body thought. 

It is through this most delicate impressibihty that she some- 
times gets frightened out of her proper character ; as in her 
equivocation about the handkerchief, and her childlike plead- 
ing for life in the last scene ; where her perfect candour and 
resignation are overmastered by sudden impressions of terror. 
But, with all her openness to influences from without, she 
is still susceptive only of the good. No element of impur- 
ity can insinuate itself. Her nature seems wrought about 
with some subtile texture of moral sympathies and antipa- 
thies, which selects, as by instinct, whatsoever is pure, with- 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

out taking any thought or touch of the evil mixed with it. 
Even lago's moral oil-of-vitrol cannot eat a passage into her 
mind : from his envenomed wit she extracts the element of 
harmless mirth, without receiving or suspecting the venom 
with which it is charged. Thus the world's contagions pass 
before her, yet dare not touch nor come near her, because 
she has nothing to sympathize with them, or to own their 
acquaintance. And so her life is like a quiet stream 

In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure 
Alone are mirror'd ; which, though shapes of ill 
Do hover round its surface, glides in light. 
And takes no shadow from them. 

Desdemona's heroism, I fear, is not of the kind to take 
very well with such an age of individual self-ensconcement 
as the present. Though of a " high and plenteous wit and 
invention," this element never makes any special report of 
itself ; that is, she has mind enough, but very little of mental 
demonstrativeness. Like Cordelia, all the parts of her being 
speak in such harmony, that the intellectual tones may not 
be distinctly heard. Besides, her mind and character were 
formed under that old-fashioned way of thinking which, re- 
garding man and wife as socially one, legislated round them, 
not between them ; as meaning that the wife should seek 
protection in her husband, instead of resorting to legal meth- 
ods for protection against him. Affection does indeed fill 
her with courage and energy of purpose : she is heroic to 
link her hfe with the man she loves ; heroic to do and to 
suffer with him and for him, after she is his j but, poor gen- 
tle soul ! she knows no heroism that can prompt her, in 
respect of him, to cast aside the awful prerogative of de- 
fencelessness : that she has lost him, is what hurts her ; and 
this is a hurt that cannot be salved with anger or resent- 



44 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

ment : so that her only strength is to be meek, uncomplain- 
ing, submissive, in the worst that his hand may execute. 

Mightier far 
Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway 
Of magic potent over Sun and star, 
Is love, though oft to agony distrest, 
And though his favourite seat be feeble woman's breast. 

Swayed by this power, our heroine is of course " a child to 
chiding," and sinks beneath her husband's unkindness, in- 
stead of having the spirit to outface it. 

They err greatly who think to school Desdemona in the 
doctrine of woman's rights. When her husband has been 
shaken from his confidence in her truth and loyalty, what 
can she care for her rights as a woman ? To be under the 
necessity of asserting them is to have lost, and more than 
lost them. A constrained abstinence from evil deeds and 
unkind words bears no price with her ; and to be sheltered 
from the wind and storm is worse than nothing to her, unless 
she have a living fountain of light and warmth in the being 
that shelters her. But indeed the beauty of the woman is 
so hid in the affection and obedience of the wife, that it 
almost seems a profanation to praise it. As brave to suffer 
wrong as she is fearful to do it, there is a holiness in her 
mute resignation, which ought, perhaps, to be kept, where 
the Poet has left it, veiled from the eyes of all save those 
whom a severe discipline of humanity may have qualified 
for duly, respecting it. At all events, whoever would get at 
her secret, let him study her as a pupil, not as a critic ; and, 
until his inmost heart speak her approval in regard of all her 
behaviour towards the Moor, let him rest assured that he is 
not competent to judge her ; and that he has much to learn, 
before he will be worthy to speak of her. But if he have 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

the gift to see that her whole course in this behalf, from the 
hour of her marriage to the last groan of the ever-loving, 
ever-obedient, broken-hearted wife, is replete with the beau- 
ty and grace and honour of womanhood ; then let him weep, 
weep, weep for her ; so may he depart " a sadder and a wiser 
man ! " As for her unresisting submissiveness, let no man 
dare to defend it ! Assuredly we shall do her a great wrong, 
and ourselves a greater wrong, if we suppose, for a moment, 
that she would not rather die by her husband's hand than 
owe her life to any protection against him. What, indeed, 
were Kfe, what could it be, to her, since suspicion has fallen 
on her innocency? That her husband could not, would not, 
dare not, wrong her, even because she had trusted in him, 
and because in her sacred defencelessness she could not 
resist nor resent the wrong, — this is the only protection 
from which she would not pray on her bended knees to 
be delivered ! 

Coleridge justly remarks upon the art shown in lago, that 
the character, with all its inscrutable depravity, neither re- 
volts nor seduces the mind : the interest of his part amounts 
almost to fascination, yet there is not the slightest moral 
taint or infection about it. Hardly less wonderful is the 
Poet's skill in carrying the Moor through such a course of 
undeserved infliction, without any loosening of his hold on 
our sympathy and respect. Deep and intense as is the feel- 
ing that goes along with the heroine, Othello fairly divides it 
with her: rather the virtues and sufferings of each are so 
managed as to heighten the interest of the other. The im- 
pression still waits upon the Moor, that he does " nought in 
hate, but all in honour." Nor is the mischief made to work 
through any vice or weakness perceived or felt in him, but 



46 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

rather through such qualities as lift him higher in our regard. 
Under the conviction that she in whom he had set his faith 
and garnered up his heart ; that she in whom he had looked 
to find how much more blessed it is to give than to receive, 
has desecfated all his gifts, and turned his very religion into 
sacrilege ; — under this conviction, all the grace, the poetry, 
the consecration, of life is gone ; his whole being, with its 
freight of hopes, memories, affections, is reduced to an utter 
wreck ; a last farewell to whatsoever has made life attractive, 
the conditions, motives, prospects, of noble achievement, is 
all there is left him : in brief, he feels literally unmade, robbed 
not only of the laurels he has won, but of the spirit that 
manned him to the winning of them ; so that he can neither 
live nobly nor nobly die, but is doomed to a sort of living 
death, an object of scorn and loathing unto himself. In 
this state of mind, no wonder his thoughts reel and totter, 
and cling convulsively to his honour, which is the only thing 
that now remains to him, until in his effort to rescue this he 
loses all, and has no refuge but in self-destruction. He 
approaches the dreadful task in the bitterness as well as 
calmness of despair. In sacrificing his love to save his 
honour he really performs the most heroic self-sacrifice ; for 
the taking of Desdemona's life is to him far worse than to 
lose his own. Nor could he have loved her so much, had 
he not loved honour more. Her love for him, too, is based 
on the selfsame principle which now prompts and nerves him 
to the sacrifice. And as at last our pity for her rises into 
awe, so our awe of him melts into pity ; the catastrophe thus 
blending their several virtues and sufferings into one most 
profound, solemn, sweetly-mournful impression. Well may 
we ask, with Coleridge, " as the curtain drops, which do we 
pity most?" 



OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



The Duke of Venice. 
Brabantio, a Senator. 
Two other Senators. 
Gratiano, Brother to Brabantio. 
LODOVICO, Kinsman to Brabantio. 
Othello, a noble Moor. 
Cassio, his Lieutenant. 
I AGO, his Ancient. 
RODERIGO, a Venetian Gentleman. 

Officers, Gentlemen, Messengers, Musicians, Sailors, Attendants, &c. 

Scene. — For the First Act, in Venice ; during the rest of the Play, at a 
Seaport in Cyprus. 



MONTANO, Governor of Cyprus. 
A Clown, Servant to Othello. 
A Herald. 

Desdemona, Othello's Wife, Daugh- 
ter to Brabantio. 
Emilia, Wife to lago. 
BlANCA, Mistress to Cassio. 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — Venice. A Street. 

Enter Roderigo and Iago. 

Rod. Tush, never tell me ; I take it much unkindly 
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse 
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.^ 

1 The intended elopement. Roderigo has been suing for Desdemona's 
hand, employing Iago to aid him in his suit, and paying his service in ad- 
vance. The play opens pat upon her elopement with the Moor, and Rod- 
erigo presumes Iago to have been in the secret of their intention. 



48 OTHELLO, ACT L 

lago. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me ! 
If ever I did dream of such a matter, 
Abhor me. 

Rod. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate. 

lago. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the 
city. 
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant, 
Oft capp'd to him ;2 and, by the faith of man, 
I know my price, I'm worth no worse a place : 
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, 
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance ^ 
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war ; 
And, in conclusion, nonsuits my mediators ; 
For, Certes, says he, Pve already chose 
My officer. And what was he ? 
Forsooth, a great arithmetician, 
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, 
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wight j ^ 

2 It appears that to cap was used for a salutation of respect, made by tak- 
ing off the cap. So explained by Coles in his Dictionary : " To cap a per- 
son, coram aliquo captit aperire, ftudare ; to uncover the head before any 
one." And Shakespeare uses half-cap for a cold or a slight salutation. So 
in Timon of Athens, ii. 2 : " With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods 
they froze me into silence." 

3 A bombastic circumlocution ; or a speech strutting through a circum- 
stantial detail with big words and sounding phrases. 

4 hi is here equivalent to on account of See Macbeth, page 99, note 7. — 
Wight was applied indifferently to persons of either sex ; often with a dash 
of humour or satire. lago seems to be rather fond of the term : he has it 
again in ii. i : " She was a wight, if ever such wight were," &c. In the text, 
he probably alludes to Cassio's amorous intrigue with Bianca, which comes 
out so prominent in the course of the play. — Cassio is sneeringly called " a 
great arithmetician " and a " counter-caster," in allusion to the pursuits for 
which the Florentines were distinguished. The point is thus stated by 
Charles Armitage Browne : "A soldier from Florence, famous for its 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 49 

That never set a squadron in the field, 

Nor the division of a battle ^ knows 

More than a spinster ; unless the bookish theoric, 

Wherein the toged consuls can propose 

As masterly as he :^ mere prattle, without practice, 

Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th' election: 

And I — of whom his eyes had seen the proof 

At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds 

Christian and heathen — must be be-lee'd and calm'd 

By debitor-and-creditor : ''' this counter-caster. 

He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, 

And I — God bless the mark ! — his Moorship's ancient.^ 

I^od. By Heaven, I rather would have been his hangman. 

/ago. Why, there's no remedy ; 'tis the curse of service, 

bankers throughout Europe, and for its invention of bills of exchange, book- 
keeping, and every thing connected with a counting-house, might well be 
ridiculed for his promotion by an lago in this manner." 

5 The arrangement, ordering, or marshalling of troops for a battle. 

6 Theoric for theory ; what may be learned from books. See Henry V., 
page 41, note 7. — " The toged consuls " are the civil governors ; so called by 
lago in opposition to the warlike qualifications of which he has been speak- 
ing. There may be an allusion to the adage, " Cedant arma togae." — Pro- 
pose, probably, in the sense of prate or propound. See Much Ado, page 66, 
note I. 

7 By a mere accountant, a keeper of debt and credit. lago means that Cas- 
sio, though knowing no more of war than men of the gown, as distinguished 
from men of the sword, has yet outsailed him in military advancement. In 
nautical language, being be-lee'd by another is the opposite of having the 
windward of him ; which latter is a position of great advantage. — Again, 
he calls Cassio " this counter-caster" in allusion to the counters formerly 
used in reckoning up accounts. 

8 Ancient is an old corruption of ensign ; used both for the flag and for 
the bearer of it. See / Henry IV., p. 157, n. 8. — " God bless the mark " is 
an old phrase of prayer or deprecation, meaning May God avert, or invert, 
the omen ; used with reference to any thing that was regarded as a dad sign 
or token. See Romeo and yuliet, page 105, note 10. 



50 OTHELLO, ACT I. 

Preferment goes by letter and affection, 

And not by old gradation, where each second 

Stood heir to th' first. Now, sir, be judge yourself, 

Whether I in any just term am affined ^ 

To love the Moor. 

Rod..ji I would not follow him, then. 

lago: 6, sir, content you ; 
I follow him to serve my turn upon him : 
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters 
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark 
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave. 
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage. 
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass, 
For nought but provender ; and, .when he's old, cashier'd : 
Whip me such honest knaves. ^^ Others there are, 
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty. 
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves ; 
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords. 
Well thrive by them, and, when they've lined their coats, 
Do themselves homage : these fellows have some soul ; 
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir, 
It is as sure as you are Roderigo, 
Were I the Moor, I would not be lago : ^^ 



9 Whether I stand within any such terms of affinity or relationship to the 
Moor, as that I am bound to love him. 

10 Knave is here used for servant, but with a sly mixture of contempt. 
The usage was very common. 

11 An instance, perhaps, of would for should; and, if so, the meaning 
may be, " Were I in the Moor's place, I should be quite another man than 
I am." Or, " if I had the Moor's nature, if I were such an honest dunce as 
he is, I should be just a fit subject for men that ' have some soul ' to practise 
upon." Perhaps lago is purposely mixing some obscurity in his talk in 
order to mystify the gull. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 5 1 

111 following him, I follow but myself; 

Fleaven is my judge, not I for love and duty. 

But seeming so, for my peculiar end : 

For, when my outward action doth demonstrate 

The native act and figure of my heart 

In complement extern,^^ 'tis not long after 

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve 

For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.^^ 

Rod. What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe, 
If he can carry 't thus ! ^^ 

lago. Call up her father. 

Rouse him. Make after him, poison his delight. 
Proclaim him in the streets ; incense her kinsmen : 
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell. 
Plague him with flies ; though that his joy be joy, 

1'-^ " Complement extern " is external completeness or accomplishment, 
lago scorns to have his inward and his outward keep touch together, as 
being the next thing to wearing himself wrong side out. The sense of the 
whole passage is, " When I shall become such a fool as to make my external 
behaviour a true index of my inward thought and purpose, I shall soon 
proceed to the further folly of putting my heart on the outside for other fools 
to sport with." In illustration of the text. Walker aptly quotes the following 
from Tourneur's Revenger s Tragedy : 

The old duke, 
Thinking my outward shape and inward heart 
Are cut out of one piece, (for he that prates his secrets, 
His heart stands o' th' outside,) hires me by price. 

13 lago probably means " I am not what I seem ; but to speak thus would 
not smack so much of the peculiar dialect with which he loves to practise 
on the dupe. 

14 How fortunate he is, or how strong in fortune, if he can hold out 
against such practice. Similar language occurs in Cymbeline : " Our pleas- 
ure \{\% full fortune doth confine." And in Antony and Cleopatra: "The 
imperious show oi \he full-fortuned Caesar." — Of course owe is used in the 
old sense oi own ox possess. 



52 OTHELLO, ACT I. 

Yet throw such changes of vexation on't, 
As it may lose some colour. 

Rod. Here is her father's house ; I'll call aloud. 

lago. Do ; with like timorous accent and dire yell 
As when, by night and negligence/^ the fire 
Is spied in populous cities. 

Rod. What, ho, Brabantio ! Signior Brabantio, ho ! 

lago. Awake ! what, ho, Brabantio ! thieves ! thieves ! 
thieves ! 
Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags ! 
Thieves ! thieves ! 

Brabantio appears above, at a window. 

Bra. What is the reason of this terrible summons? 
What is the matter there ? 

Rod. Signior, is all your family within ? 

lago. Are your doors lock'd? 

Bra. Why, wherefore ask you this ? 

lago. Zounds, sir, you're robb'd ! for shame, put on your 
gown ! 
Your heart is burst, i^ you have lost half your soul : 
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell. 
Or else the Devil ^'^ will make a grandsire of you. 
Arise, I say. 

Bra. What, have you lost your wits ? 

15 That is, 171 the time of night and negligence ; a very cQmmon form of 
expression. — Timorous was sometimes used, as fearful still is, for that 
which frightens. Old dictionaries explain it "fearful, horridus, formido- 
losus." 

If* Burst is here used in the sense of broken. The usage was common. 

1'^ Alludiag to the imputed colour of the Devil, who was always repre- 
sented as black ; and implying that Othello is of the same stock and com- 
plexion. See The Merchant, page 95, note 27. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE, 53 

Rod. Most reverend signior, do you know my voice ? 

Bra. Not I : what are you? 

Rod. My name is Roderigo. 

Bra. The worser welcome ; 

I've charged thee not to haunt about my doors : 
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say 
My daughter is not for thee ; and now, in madness, 
Being full of supper and distempering draughts/^ 
Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come 
To start my quiet : — 

Rod. Sir, sir, sir, — 

Bra, — but thou must needs be sure 

My spirit and my place have in them power 
To make this bitter to thee. 

Rod. Patience, good sir. 

Bra. What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice ; 
My house is not a grange.!^ 

Rod. Most grave Brabantio, 

In simple and pure soul I come to you. 

lago. Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve 
God, if the Devil bid you. 

Bra. Thou art a villain. 

lago. You are — a Senator. 

Bra. This thou shalt answer : I know thee, Roderigo. 

Rod. Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you, 
If t be your pleasure and most wise consent. 
As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter, 

is "Distempering draughts " is intoxicating potations. — Bravery, here, is 
bravado, insolence, defiance. 

19 " Mine is not a lone house, where a robbery might easily be committed." 
Grange is, strictly, the farm of a monastery ; but, provincially, any lone 
house or solitary farm is called z. grange. 



54 OTHELLO, ACT I 

At this odd-even ^^ and dull watch o' the night, 

Transported, with no worse nor better guard 

But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,^^ 

To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor, — 

If this be known to you, and your allowance. 

We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs ; 

But, if you know not this, my manners tell me 

We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe 

That, from ^^ the sense of all civility, 

I thus would play and trifle with your reverence. 

Your daughter, — if you have not given her leave, — 

I say again, hath made a gross revolt ; 

Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes. 

In an extravagant and wheeling ^^ stranger 

Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself: 

If she be in her chamber or your house. 

Let loose on me the justice of the State 

For thus deluding you. 

Bra. Strike on the tinder, ho ! 

Give me a taper ! — call up all my people ! — 
This accident is not unlike my dream : ^4 

20 This odd-even appears to mean the interval between twelve at night 
and one in the morning. 

2i A writer in the Pictorial Shakespeare tells us, " that the gondoliers are 
the only conveyers of persons, and of a large proportion of property, in Ven- 
ice; that they are thus cognizant of all intrigues, and the fittest agents in 
them, and are under perpetual and strong temptation to make profit of the 
secrets of society. Brabantio might well be in horror at his daughter hav- 
ing, in ' the dull watch o' the night, no worse nor better guard.' " 

22 From here has the force of against or contrary to. Repeatedly so. 

23 Wheeling is roving or running about. Extravagant in the Latin sense 
oi straying or wandering. So Sir Henry Wotton has the phrase " not alto- 
gether extravagant from my purpose." See, also, Ha?nlet, page 54, note 42. 
— In for on or upon; the two being often used indiscriminately. 

24 The careful oid Senator, being caught careless, transfers his caution 
to his dreaming-power at least. — Coleridge. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 55 

Belief of it oppresses me already. — 

Light, I say ! light ! [^Exit above. 

lago. Farewell ; for I must leave you : 

It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place. 
To be produced — as, if I stay, I shall — 
Against the Moor : for, I do know, the State — ■ 
However this may gall him with some check — 
Cannot with safety cast him ; for he's embark'd 
With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars. 
Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls. 
Another of his fathom ^^ they have none 
To lead their business : in which regard,^^ 
Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains. 
Yet, for necessity of present life, 
I must show out a flag and sign of love. 
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him, 
Lead to the Sagittary ^^ the raised search ; 
And there will I be with him. So, farewell. \^Exit. 

Enter, below, Brabantio, and Servants with torches. 

Bra. It is too true an evil : gone she is ; 
And what's to come of my despised time ^s 
Is nought but bitterness. — Now, Roderigo, 

25 Fathom, here, is measure ; that is, depth, reach, or capacity. 

26 "/« which regard" here means the same as on which account. 

27 Considerable question has been made as to the place meant by Sagit- 
tary. Probably it was some inn or hotel that had, for its sign, a picture of 
the old zodiacal sign, Sagittarius. Inns were commonly named from the 
animals or other things thus depicted on their signs ; and Shakespeare has 
many instances of such naming. It is not unlikely that the Poet had him- 
self known a Venetian inn called " The Sagittary." 

28 Despised time is here a proleptical form of speech ; that is, Brabantio 
anticipates contempt during the rest of his life, in consequence of what his 
daughter has done. 



56 OTHELLO, ACT I 

Where didst thou see her ? O unhappy girl ! 
With the Moor^ say'st thou ? Who would be a father ! 
How didst thou know 'twas she ? O, she deceives me 
Past thought ! What said she to you ? — Get more tapers ; 
Raise all my kindred. — Are they married, think you ? 

Rod. Truly, I think they are. 

Bra. O Heaven ! How got she out? O treason of the 
blood! — 
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds 
By what you see them act. — Is there not charms 
By which the property of youth and maidhood 
May be abused ? ^^ Have you not read, Roderigo, 
Of some such thing ? 

Rod. Yes, sir, I have indeed. 

Bra. Call up my brother. — O, would you had had her ! — 
Some one way, some another. — Do you know 
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor ? 

Rod. I think I can discover him, if you please 
To get good guard, and go along with me. 

Bra. Pray you, lead on. At every house Pll call ; 
I may command at most.^^ — Get weapons, ho ! 
And raise some special officers of night. — 
On, good Roderigo ; Fll deserve your pains. [Exeunt 

29 Abused is cheated, deluded, made game of. Often so. 

30 " I may command at most of the houses." 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 5/ 

Scene II. — The Same. Another Street. 
Enter Othello, Iago, arid Attendants with torches. 

lago. Though in the trade of war I have slain men^ 
Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience i 
To do no c6ntrived murder : I lack iniquity 
Sometimes to do me service : nine or ten times 
I had thought t' have yerk'd^ him here under the ribs. 

Oth. 'Tis better as it is. 

Iago. Nay, but he prated, 

And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms 
Against your Honour, ^ 
That, with the little godliness I have, 
I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir, 
Are you fast married ? Be assured of this, 
That the magnifico ^ is much beloved ; 
And hath, in his effect, a voice potential. 
As double as the Duke's : ^ he will divorce you ; 
Or put upon you what restraint and grievance 
The law — with all his might t' enforce it on — 
Will give him cable. 

1 As we should say, o. point or a matter of conscience. 

2 Toyerk is the same as \.o jerk ; to strike with a quick smart blow. In 
King Hetiry V., iv. 7, we have it used of horses kicking : " The wounded 
sXeedsyerk out their arm^d heels." 

3 Iago is speaking of Roderigo, and pretending to relate what he has 
done and said against Othello. 

4 Magnifico is an old title given to the grandees or chief men of Venice. 

5 He hath a voice potential, or powerful, as much so as the Duke's, is the 
meaning. The Poet often uses single for weak or feeble ; and here, for 
once, he has double in the opposite sense. The Duke or Doge of Venice 
was a magistrate of great power, every court and council of the State being 
very much under his control. 



58 OTHELLO, ACT L 

0th. Let him do his spite : 

My services which I have done the signiory 
Shall 6 out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know, — 
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour, 
I shall promulgate, — I fetch my life and being 
From men of royal siege ;^ and my demerits 
May speak, unbonneted,^ to as proud a fortune 
As this that I have reach'd : for know, lago. 
But that I love the gentle Desdemona, 
I would not my unhoused ^ free condition 
Put into circumscription and confine 
For the sea's worth, i^ But, look ! what lights come yond? 

lago. Those are the raised father and his friends : 
You were best go in. 

0th. Not I ; I must be found ; 

My parts, my title, and my perfect soul 
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they ? 

lago. By Janus, I think no. 

Enter Cassio, and certain Officers ivith torches. 

Oth. The servants of the Duke, and my lieutenant. — 
The goodness of the night upon you, friends ! 
What is the news ? 

6 Here our present idiom would require will. I have repeatedly noted 
that in the Poet's time shall and will were often used interchangeably. 
'^ Men who have sat on kingly thrones. Siege for seat was common. 

8 Merit and demerit were often used synonymously. So in Latin mereo 
and demereo have the same meaning. Unbonneted is without taking off the 
hat. To bonnet, like to cap, is to take off the cap in token of respect. See 
page 48, note 2. 

9 Unhoused is nnsettled, without a home or domestic ties. 

10 Pliny, the naturalist, has a chapter on the riches of the sea. The ex- 
pression seems to have been proverbial. See, also, Clarence's account ol 
his dream, in King Richard the Third, i. 4. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 59 

Cas. The Duke does greet you, general ; 

And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance, 
Even on the instant. 

Oth. What is the matter, think you? 

Cas. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine. 
It is a business of some heat : the galleys 
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers 
This very night at one another's heels ; 
And many of the consuls,^i raised and met, 
Are at the Duke's already : you had been hotly call'd for ; 
When, being not at your lodging to be found. 
The Senate sent about three several quests 
To search you out. 

Oth. 'Tis well I'm found by you. 

I will but spend a word here in the house. 
And go with you. \_Exit. 

Cas. Ancient, what makes he here ? ^^ 

lago. Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack : i^ 
If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever. 

Cas. I do not understand. 

lago. He's married. 

Cas. To who? 

Re-enter Othello. 

lago. Marry, to — Come, captain, will you go ? 

Oth. Have with you. 

Cas. Here comes another troop to seek for you. 

11 Consuls means the same here as the " toged consuls," or men of the 
gown, mentioned in note 6 of the preceding scene ; that is, the Senators, 

12 What is he about, or what is he doing here ? Shakespeare so uses the 
phrase repeatedly. 

13 A carack or carrick, was a ship of great burden, a Spanish galleon ; 
80 named from carico, a lading, or freight. 



6o OTHELLO, ACT I, 

lago. It is Brabantio : general, be advised ; 
He comes to bad intent. 

Enter Brabantio, Roderigo, and Officers with torches and 

weapons. 

0th. Holla ! stand there ! 

Rod. Signior, it is the Moor. 

Bra. Down with him, thief ! 

\They draw on both sides, 
lago. Yoii, Roderigo ! come, sir, I am for you. 
Oth. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust 
them.i4 — 

Good signior, you shall more command with years 
Than with your weapons. 

Bra. O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my 
daughter ? 
Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her ; 
For I'll refer me to all things of sense, 
If she in chains of magic were not bound. 
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy. 
So opposite to marriage that she shunn'd 
The wealthy curled ^^ darhngs of our nation. 
Would ever have, t' incur a general mock. 
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom 
Of such a thing as thou, — to fear, not to delight. 
Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense 

14 If I mistake not, there is a sort of playful, good-humoured irony ex- 
pressed in the very rhythm of this line. The thing was remarked to me 
many years ago by the Hon. R. H. Dana, of Boston, 

15 In Shakespeare's time it was the fashion for lusty gallants to wear " a 
curled bush of frizzled hair." In King Lear, Edgar, when he was " proud 
in heart and mind," curled his hair. The Poet has other allusions to the 
custom among people of rank and fashion. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 6l 

That thou hast practised on her with foul charms ; 
Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals 
That waken motion : ^^ I'll have't disputed on ; 
'Tis probable and palpable to thinking. 
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee 
For an abuser of the world, a practiser 
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant. — 
Lay hold upon him : if he do resist, 
Subdue him at his peril. 

Of/i. Hold your hands, 

Both you of my inclining, and the rest ! 
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it 
Without a prompter. — Where will you that I go 
To answer this your charge ? 

Bra. To prison ; till fit time 

Of law and course of direct session i'^ 
Call thee to answer. 

0//i. What if I do obey? 

How may the Duke be therewith satisfied, 
Whose messengers are here about my side. 
Upon some present business of the State 
To bring me to him ? 

I Off. Tis true, most worthy signior ; 

The Duke's in council, and your noble self, 

16 Motion is elsewhere used by the Poet in the same sense. So in Meas- 
ure for Measure : " One who never feels the wanton stings and motions of 
the sense." And in a subsequent part of this scene : " But we have reason, 
to cool our raging ^notions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts." To waken 
is to incite, to stir up. We have, in the present play, " waken d wrath." 

17 The language is rather odd, and perhaps somewhat obscure; but the 
meaning probably is, till the time prescribed by law and by the regular 
course of judicial procedure. Session is not unfrequently used in this way ; 
and the proper meaning of direct is straight onward, or according to rule. 



62 OTHELLO, ACT I. 

I'm sure, is sent for. 

Bra. How ! the Duke in council ! 

In this time of the night ! — Bring him away ; 
Mine's not an idle cause : the Duke himself. 
Or any of my brothers of the State, 
Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own ; 
For, if such actions may have passage free, 
Bond-slaves and pagans ^^ shall our statesmen be. [^Exeunt. 



Scene III. — The Sa?7te. A Cotmcil-chamber. 

The Duke and Senators sitting at a table ; Officers attending. 

Duke. There is no composition in these news 
That gives them credit.^ 

1 Sen. Indeed, they're disproportion'd ; 
My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. 

Duke. And mine, a hundred and forty. 

2 Sen. And mine, two hundred : 
But though they jump not on a just account, — 

As in these cases, where the aim reports,^ 

'Tis oft with difference, — yet do they all confirm - 

A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus. 

Duke. Nay, it is possible enough to judgment : 



18 Pagan was a word of contempt ; and the reason will appear from its 
etymology : "Pagattus, villanus vel incultus. Et derivatur a pagus, quod est 
villa. Et quicunque habitat in villa est paganus. Prasteria quicunque est 
extra civitatem Dei, i.e., ecclesiam, dicitur paganus. Anglice, a.paynim." — 
Ortus Vocabulorum, 1528. 

1 There is no co7tsistency, no agreement, in these reports, to stamp them 
with credibility. News was used as singular or plural indifferently. 

2 The Poet elsewhere uses ai77i in the sense oi guess or co?zjecture. So in 
jfulius Ccesar : " What you would work me to, I have some aim" 



SCENE III. 



THE MOOR OF VENICE. 63 



I do not SO secure me in the error, 
But the main article I do approve 
In fearful sense. 

Sailor. [ IVz'l/ii'n.'] What, ho ! what, ho ! what, ho f 

I Off. A messenger from the galleys. 

Enter a Sailor. 

Duke. Now, what's the business? 

Sail. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes ; 
So was I bid report here to the State 
By Signior Angelo. 

Duke. How say you by this change ? ^ 

I Sen. This cannot be, 

By no assay of reason : ^ 'tis a pageant. 
To keep us in false gaze. When we consider 
Th' importancy of Cyprus to the Turk ; 
And let ourselves again but understand, 
That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes, 
So may he with more facile question bear it,^ 
For that it stands not in such warlike brace, 
But altogether lacks th' abilities 

That Rhodes is dress'd in ; — if we make thought of this. 
We must not think the Turk is so unskilful 
To leave that latest which concerns him first. 
Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain. 
To wake and wage ^ a danger profitless. 

3 That is, what say you (?/'this change ? See Macbeth, page 117, note 24. 

4 By no trial or test of reason. Assay was often used thus. 

5 May win or capture it with an easier contest. — Question readily glides 
through controversy to conflict ox fight. — Brace, next line, is state of defence, 
strongly braced. So, to brace on the armour was to arm. 

6 To wage is to undertake. " To wage law (in the common acceptation) 
seems to be to follow, to nrge, drive on, or prosecute the law or law-suits; 



64 OTHELLO, ACT I. 

Duke. Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes. 
I Off. Here is more news. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, 
Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes, 
Have there in jointed '^ with an after fleet. 

I Sen. Ay, so I thought. — How many, as you guess ? 

Mess. Of thirty sail ; and now they do re-stem 
Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance 
Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano, 
Your trusty and most valiant servitor, 
With his free duty recommends you thus, 
And prays you to beheve him. 

Duke. 'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus. — 
Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town? 

I Sen. He's now in Florence. 

Duke. Write from us to him ; post-post-haste dispatch. 

I Sen. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor. 

Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Officers, 

Duke. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you 
Against the general enemy Ottoman.^ — 
\To Braban.] I did not see you ; welcome, gentle signior ; 
We lack'd your counsel and your help to-night. 

as to wage war is. prceliari, bellare, to drive on the war, to fight in battels as 
warriors do." — Blount's Glossography. 

1 Injoitited is the same here as united, and so used intransitively, 
8 It was part of the policy of the Venetian State to employ strangers, and 
even Moors, in their wars. " By lande they are served of straungers, both 
for generals, for capitaines, and for all other men of warre, because theyr 
lawe permitteth not any Venetian to be capitaine over an armie by lande ; 
fearing, I thinke, Caesar's example." — Thomas's History of Italye. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 65 

Bra. So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me : 
Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business, 
Hath raised me from my bed ;^nor doth the general care 
Take hold on me ; for my particular gi-ief 
Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature 
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, 
And it is still itself. 

Duke. Why, what's the matter? 

Bra. My daughter ! O, my daughter ! 

Duke and Sen. Dead ? 

Bra. Ay, to me : 

She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted 
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks ; 
For nature so preposterously to err, 
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense, 
Sans witchcraft could not. 

Duke. Whoe'er he be that, in this foul proceeding. 
Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself, 
And you of her, the bloody book of law ^ 
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter 
After your own sense ; yea, though our proper son 
Stood in your action. 

Bra. Humbly I thank your Grace. 

Here is the man, this Moor ; whom now, it seems. 
Your special mandate, for the state-affairs. 
Hath hither brought. 

Duke and Sen. We're very sorry for't. 

Duke. \^To Othello.] What, in your own part, can you 
say to this ? 

9 By the Venetian law the giving love-potions was highly criminal, as ap- 
pears in the Code Delia Promission del Malefico. And the use oi philters, 
so called, for the purpose here supposed, was generally credited. 



66 OTHELLO, A 

Bra. Nothing, but this is so. 

0th. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors. 
My very noble and approved good masters, 
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, 
It is most true ; true, I have married her : 
The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech. 
And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace ; 
For, since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, 
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 
Their dearest action in the tented field ; 
And little of this great world can I speak. 
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ; 
And therefore little shall I grace my cause 
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, 
I will a round ^^ unvarnish'd tale deliver 
Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what charms, 
What conjuration, and what mighty magic, — 
For such proceeding I am charged withal, — 
I won his daughter with. 

Bf-a. A maiden never bold ; 

Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion 
Blush'd at herself; ^^ and she — in spite of nature. 
Of years, of country, credit, every thing — 
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on ! 
It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect. 



!<> Round was often used in the sense oi plain or downright. 

11 Herself iox itself referring to motion. The personal and neutral pro- 
nouns were often used interchangeably. — Motion is here used in the same 
sense as remarked in note i6 of the preceding scene ; meaning, as White 
says, " that Desdemona blushed when conscious of the natural passions of 
her sex " 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 6/ 

That will confess perfection so could err 
Against all rules of nature ; and must be driven 
To find out practices of cunning Hell, 
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again, 
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, 
Or with some dram conjured to this effect. 
He wrought upon her, 

Duke. To vouch this, is no proof: 

Without more certain and more overt test, 
These are thin habits and poor likehhoods 
Of modern seeming,^^ you prefer against him. 

I Sen. But, Othello, speak : 
Did you by indirect and forced courses 
Subdue and poison this young maid's affections? 
Or came it by request, and such fair question 
As soul to soul affordeth ? 

0th. I do beseech you. 

Send for the lady to the Sagittary, 
And let her speak of me before her father : 
If you do find me foul in her report, 
The trust, the office, I do hold of you, 
Not only take away, but let your sentence 
Even fall upon my life. 

Duke. Fetch Desdemona hither. 

0th. Ancient, conduct them ; you best know the place. — 

\_Exemit Iago and Attendants. 
And, till she come, as truly as to Heaven 
I do confess the vices of my blood, 

12 Modern is here used in the sense of common or vulgar ; as in the 
phrase, " full of wise saws and modern instances." — Habits seems to be used 
here much as we now use colour, as in " some colour of truth " ; that is, 
semblance. Some think it a Latinism, like habita, thinsjs held or believed. 



6S OTHELLO, ACT I. 

So justly to your grave ears I'll present 
How I did thrive in this fair lady's love. 
And she in mine. 

Z>uke. Say it, Othello. 

0//i. Her father loved me ; oft invited me ; 
Still question'd me the story of my life. 
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, 
That I have pass'd. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days 
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it : 
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances. 
Of moving accidents by flood and field ; 
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach ; 
Of being taken by the insolent foe. 
And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence. 
And portance ^^ in my travels' history : 
Wherein of antres ^'* vast and deserts idle. 
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven. 
It was my hint to speak, — such was the process ; 
And of the Cannibals that each other eat. 
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
Do grow beneath their shoulders.^^ This to hear 

13 Portance is carriage or deportment. So in Coriolanus, ii. 3 : " But 
your loves, thinking upon his services, took from you the apprehension of 
his present portance." 

14 Caverns ; from atitrum, Lat. Rymer ridicules this whole circumstance ; 
and Shaftesbury obliquely sneers at it. " Whoever," says Johnson, " ridi- 
cules this account of the progress of love, shows his ignorance not only of 
history, but of nature and manners." 

15 Nothing excited more universal attention than the account brought by 
Sir Walter Raleigh, on his return from his celebrated voyage to Guiana in 
1595, of the cannibals, amazons, and especially of the nation, "whose heads 
do grow beneath their shoulders." A short extract of the more wonderful 
passages was also published in Latin and in several other languages in 1599, 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 69 

Would Desdemona seriously incline : 

But still the house-affairs would draw her thence ; 

Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, 

She'd come again, and with a greedy ear 

Devour up my discourse : which I observing, 

Took once a pliant hour ; and found good means 

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart 

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 

Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 

But not intentively.^6 I did consent ; 

And often did beguile her of her tears. 

When I did speak of some distressful stroke 

That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, 

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 

She swore,!''' In faith, "'twas strange, 'twas passing strange ; 

^Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: 

She wish'd she had not heard it ; yet she wish'd 

That Heaven had made her such a man : 1^ she thank'd me ; 

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 

I should but teach him how to tell my story. 

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake : 

adorned with copperplates, representing these cannibals, amazons, and head- 
less people, &c. These extraordinary reports were universally credited ; and 
Othello therefore assumes no other character than what was very common 
among the celebrated commanders of the Poet's time. 

16 Intention and attention were once synonymous. " Intentive, which 
listeneth well and is earnestly bent to a thing," says BuUokar, in his Exposi- 
tor, 1616. Lettsom remarks that here the word " seems to mean either all 
at a stretch, or so as to comprehend the story as a whole." 

1'^ To aver upon faith or honour was considered swearing. 

18 A question has lately been raised whether the meaning here is, that 
Desdemona wished such a man had been made for her, or that she herself 
had been made such a man ; and several have insisted on the latter, lest the 
lady's delicacy should be impeached ! 



70 OTHELLO, ACT I 

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd ; 
And I loved her that she did pity them. 
This only is the witchcraft I have used : 
Here comes the lady ; let her witness it. 

Enter Desdemona with Iago and Attendants. 

Duke. I think this tale would win my daughter too. — 
Good Brabantio, 

Take up this mangled matter at the best : 
Men do their broken weapons rather use 
Than their bare hands. 

Bra. I pray you, hear her speak : 

If she confess that she was half the wooer, 
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame 
Light on the man ! — Come hither, gentle mistress : 
Do you perceive in all this noble company 
Where most you owe obedience ? 

Des. My noble father, 

I do perceive here a divided duty : 
To you I'm bound for Kfe and education ; 
My life and education both do learn me 
How to respect you ; you're the lord of duty, 
I'm hitherto your daughter : but here's my husband ; 
And so much duty as my mother show'd 
To you, preferring you before her father. 
So much I challenge that I may profess 
Due to the Moor my lord. 

Bra. God b' wi' you ! I have done. — 

Please it your Grace, on to the State -affairs. 
Come hither. Moor : 
I here do give thee that with all my heart 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. /I 

Which, but 1^ thou hast already, with all my heart 

I would keep from thee. — For my own sake, jewel, 

I'm glad at soul I have no other child ; 

For thy escape would teach me tyranny, 

To hang 20 clogs on them. — I have done, my lord. 

^Duke. Let me speak like yourself ^^^ and lay a sentence, 
*Which, as a grise ^^ or step, may help these lovers 
*Into your favour. 

* When remedies are past, the griefs are ended ^^ 
*By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. 
*To mourn a mischief that is past and gone 

*Is the next way to draw new mischief on. 

*What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, 

*Patience her injury a mockery makes. 

*The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief; 

*He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. 

*Bra. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile ; 
*We lose it not, so long as we can smile. 
*He bears the sentence well that nothing bears 
*But the free comfort which from thence he hears; 
*But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow 
*That to pay grief must of poor patience borrow. 
*These sentences, to sugar, or to gall, 

* Being strong on both sides, are equivocal : 

19 But in the exceptive sense ; but that or except. Frequent. 

20 To hang for in or by hanging. See Macbeth, page 86, note 26. 

21 " Let me speak in the same manner as you haye yourself just spoken." 
He refers to Brabantio's " I here do give thee that with all my heart," &c. 
And so he goes on to urge acquiescence in what is done, merely because it 
is done, and cannot be undone. 

22 Grise or greese is a step ; from gres, French. 

23 This is expressed in a common proverbial form in Love's Labours Lost. 
" Past cure is still past care." 



72 OTHELLO, ACT I 

*But words are words ; I never yet did hear 

*That the bruised heart was pierced "^ through the ear. — 

*Beseech you, now proceed to the affairs of State. 

Duke. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes 
for Cyprus. — Othello, the fortitude of the place is best 
known to you ; and though we have there a substitute of 
most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of 
effects^ throws a more safer voice on you : you must there- 
fore be content to slubber ^^ the gloss of your new fortunes 
with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition. 

Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave Senators, 
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war 
My thrice-driven bed of down : ^^ I do agnize 
A natural and prompt alacrity 
I find in hardness ; and do undertake 
This present war against the Ottomites. 

24 Pierced seems rather harsh and unfitting here. Of course the mean- 
ing is, reached or penetrated with healing virtue. The expression was not 
uncommon. So Spenser, in The Faerie Queene, iv, 8, 26, describing the old 
hag Sclaunder attributes to her words " Which, passing through the eares, 
would pierce the hart." And again in vi. 9, 26, speaking of Melibee's sage 
discourse : 

Whose sensefull words empierst his hart so neare, 
That he was wrapt with double ravishment. 

Also in the First Part of Marlow's Tamburlaine, i. 2, quoted by Dyce : 

Nor thee nor them, thrice-noble Tamburlaine, 
Shall want my heart to be with gladness pierc'd. 

25 ^o slubber is, properly, to tieglect or to slight ; here it seems to have 
the sense of obscuring by negligence. See The Merchant, page 127, note 5. 

26 A driven bed is a bed for which the feathers have been selected by 
driving y^\\S\ a fan, which separates the light from the, heavy. — To agnize is 
to acknowledge, confess, or avow. Thus in a Summarie Report relative to 
Mary Queen of Scots, 1586 : " A repentant convert agnizing her Majesty's 
^reat mercie." 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 73 

Most humbly, therefore, bending to your State, 
I crave fit disposition for my wife ; 
Due reference of place and exhibition ; 
With such accommodation and besort ^^ 
As levels with her breeding. 

Duke. If you please, 

Be't at her father's. 

Bra. I'll not have it so. 

0th. Nor I. 

Des. Nor I ; I would not there reside. 

To put my father in impatient thoughts 
By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke, 
To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear ; ^8 
And let me find a charter in, your voice, 
T' assist my simpleness. 

Duke. What would you, Desdemona? 

Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him, 
My downright violence and storm of fortunes 
May trumpet to the world : my heart's subdued 
Even to the very quality ^^ of my lord : 



27 Besort is attendance or companionship. — Exhibition is allowance or 
provision. See King Lear, page 70, note 6. 

28 Prosperous is here used in an active sense, the same as propitious. — 
Charter, in the next line, appears to mean about the same as pledge or 

guaranty. The word is used in a considerable variety of senses by Shake- 
speare, and seems to have been rather a favourite with him, as with other 
Englishmen, probably from the effect of Magna Charta and other like 
instruments in securing and preserving the liberties of England. 

29 Quality is here put, apparently, for nature, idiom, distinctive grain, or 
personal propriety. Desdemona means that her heart is tamed and tuned 
into perfect harmony with the heroic manhood that has spoken out to her 
from Othello's person; that her soul gravitates towards him as its pre- 
established centre and home. So that the sense of the passage may be 
fitly illustrated from the Poet's iiith Sonnet: "And almost thence my na- 



74 OTHELLO, ACT I, 

I saw Othello's visage in his mind ; 
And to his honours and his vaHant parts 
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. 
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, 
A moth of peace, and he go to the war. 
The rites for whith I love him are bereft me. 
And I a heavy interim shall support 
By his dear 30 absence. Let me go with him. 

Oth. Your voices, lords : beseech you, let her will 
Have a free way. 

Vouch with me, Heaven, I therefore ^^ beg it not, 
To please the palate of my appetite, 
Nor to comply wi' th' heat of young affects, ^^ — 
In me defunct, — but for her satisfaction. 
And to be free and bounteous to her mind. 
And Heaven defend your good souls,^^ that you think 
I will your serious and great business scant 
For she is with me : ^^ no, when light-wing'd toys 

ture is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand." — In " downright 
violence and storm of fortunes," the meaning probably is the state or course 
of Hfe which the speaker has boldly ventured upon in forsaking the peace- 
ful home of her father to share the storms and perils, the violences and 
hardships, of a warrior's career. 

30 Dear, in its original sense, was an epithet of any thing that excited 
intense feeling, whether of pleasure or of pain. So the Poet has it repeat- 
edly. See Twelfth Night, page 125, note 6. 

31 " I do not beg it for this cause'' Shakespeare has repeated instances 
of therefore in the sense of for this cause or to this end. 

32 Affects for affections, and in the sense oi passions. Repeatedly so. See 
Winter s Tale, page 47, note 21. — The word defunct properly goes with 

heat, not with affects. Othello means simply that the heat of youthful im- 
pulse has cooled down; that his passions have become tempered to the 
rule of judgment. 

33 Old language for " Heaven defend your good souls from thinking." 

34 Because she is with me. For was often used thus. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 75 

Of feather'd Cupid seeP^ with wanton dullness 
My speculative and active instruments,^^ 
That my disports corrupt and taint my business, 
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm. 
And all indign and base adversities 
Make head against my estimation ! 

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine. 
Either for her stay or going : th' affair cries haste. 
And speed must answer it. 

I Sen. You must away to-night. 

0th. With all my heart. 

Duke. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again. — 
Othello, leave some officer behind. 
And he shall our commission bring to you ; 
With such things else of quality and respect 
As doth import you.^"^ 

Oth. So please your Grace, my ancient ; 

A man he is of honesty and trust : 
To his conveyance I assign my wife. 
With what else needful your good Grace shall think 
To be sent after me.*^^ 

Duke. Let it be so. — 

Good night to every one. — \_To Brab.] And, noble signior, 

35 Seel is an old term in falconry, for closing up the eyes of a hawk. 
Done by sewing the lids together. See Macbeth, page 107, note 14. 

36 Meaning his faculties of intelligence and of action, — That, next line, 
is so that, or insomuch that. Often so. 

37 To " import you " is the same as to be important to you. The Poet 
repeatedly uses the verb in the kindred sense of to concern. So in Antony 
and Cleopatra, i. 2 : " Her length of sickness, with what else more serious 
importeth thee to know, this bears." Also in Troilus and Cressida, iv. 2 : 
" It doth import him much to speak with me." 

38 The construction is, " with what else your good Grace shall think need- 
ful to be sent after me." 



"J^ OTHELLO, 



ACT I. 



If virtue no delighted ^^ beauty lack, 
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. 

I Sen. Adieu, brave Moor ; use Desdemona well. 

Bra. Look to her. Moor, if thou hast eyes to see : 
She has deceived her father, and may thee.^^ 

{^Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, b^c, 

0th. My life upon her faith ! — Honest lago. 
My Desdemona must I leave to thee : 
I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her ; 
And bring them after in the best advantage."^^ — 
Come, Desdemona ; I have but an hour 
Of love, of worldly matters and direction. 
To spend with thee : we must obey the time. 

\_Exeunt Othello and Desdemona. 

Rod. lago, — 

lago. What say'st thou, noble heart? 

Rod. What will I do, think'st thou ? 

lago. Why, go to bed, and sleep. 

Rod. I will incontinently '^^ drown myself. 

lago. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, 
thou silly gentleman ! 

Rod. It is silliness to live when to live is torment ; and 
then have we a prescription to die when death is our j^hy- 
sician. 

39 " Delighted beauty " evidently means here beauty that gives or yields 
delight ; that is, delightful. An instance of the indiscriminate use of active 
and passive forms which occurs so often in the old writers. 

40 In real life, how do we look back to little speeches as presentimental 
of, or contrasted with, an affecting event ! Even so, Shakespeare, as secure of 
being read over and over, of becoming a family friend, provides this passage 
for his readers, and leaves it to them, — Coleridge. 

41 " The best advantage " means the fairest or earliest opportunity. 

42 Immediately ; the old meaning of incontinently. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 77 

lago. O villainous ! I have look'd upon the world for four 
times seven years ; ^^ and, since I could distinguish betwixt a 
benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to 
love himself. Ere I would say, I would drown myself for 
the love of a guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with 
a baboon. 

Rod. What should I do ? I confess it is my shame to be 
so fond ; but it is not in my virtue to amend it. 

lago. Virtue ! a fig ! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus or 
thus. Our bodies are our gardens ; to the which our wills are 
gardeners : so that, if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce ; 
set hyssop, and weed-up thyme ; supply it with one gender 
of herbs, or distract it with many ; either to have it steril 
with idleness or manured with industry ; why, the power and 
corrigible ^^ authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance 
of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of 
sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would con- 
duct us to most preposterous conclusions : but we have rea- 
son to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted 
lusts ; whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or 
scion.^^ 



'IS This clearly ascertains lago's age to be twenty-eight years ; though the 
general impression of him is that of a much older man. The Poet, no doubt, 
had a wise purpose in making him so young, as it infers his virulence of 
mind to be something innate and spontaneous, and not superinduced by 
harsh experience of the world. 

44 Corrigible for corrective. This comes under the same head as that in 
note 39. Adjectives ending in -able or -ible are often used thus by Shake- 
speare. See Twelfth Night, page i^i, note 3, 

45 A sect is what the gardeners call a cutting. — " This speech," says Cole- 
ridge, " comprises the passionless character of lago. It is all will in intel- 
lect ; and therefore he is here a bold partisan of a truth, but yet of a truth 
converted into a falsehood by the absence of all the necessary modifications 
caused by the frail nature of man." 



yS OTHELLO, ACT h 

Rod. It cannot be. 

lago. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission 
of the will. Come, be a man : drown thyself ! drown cats 
and blind puppies. I have profess'd me thy friend, and I 
confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable 
toughness ; I could never better stead thee than now. Put 
money in thy purse ; follow thou the wars ; defeat thy favour ^^ 
with an usurp 'd beard ; I say, put money in thy purse. It 
cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to 
the Moor, — put money in thy purse, — nor he his to her : it 
was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answer- 
able sequestration ; 4"^ — put but money in thy purse. These 
Moors are changeable in their wills ; — fill thy purse with 
money : — the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts ^'^ 
shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must 
change for youth : she will find the error of her choice : she 
must have change, she must ; therefore put money in thy 
purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more deli- 
cate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst : 
if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring '^^ barbarian 
and a supersubtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and 
all the tribe of Hell, thou shalt have her; therefore make 
money. A pox of drowning thyself ! it is clean out of the 
way : seek thou rather to be hang'd in compassing thy joy 
than to be drown'd and go without her. 

46 Defeat was used for disfigurement or alteration of features : from the 
French defaire. Favour is countenance. 

47 Sequestratio7t is defined to be " a putting apart, a separation of a thing 
from the possession of both those that contend for it." 

48 Alluding, probably, to the ceratonia or carob, an evergreen growing in 
the south of Europe, and bearing sweet black pods. Commerce had made 
the fruit well known in London, and locust was the popular name for it, 

49 Erring is here used in its Latin sense of erratic or wandering. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 79 

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the 
issue ? 

lago. Thou art sure of me; — go, make money. I have 
told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I hate the 
Moor : my cause is hearted ; thine hath no less reason. Let 
us be conjunctive in our revenge against him : if thou canst 
dishonour him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There 
are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. 
Traverse ; ^^ go, provide thy money. We will have more of 
this to-morrow. Adieu. 

Rod. Where shall we meet i' the morning? 

lago. At my lodging. 

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes. 

lago. Go to ; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo ? 

Rod. What say you? 

lago. No more of drowning, do you hear? 

Rod. I am changed : I'll go sell all my land. 

lago. Go to ; farewell : put money enough in your purse. — 

[_Exif Roderigo. 
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse ; 
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, 
If I would time expend with such a snipe. 
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor ; 
And it is thought abroad, that in my home 
He's done me wrong : I know not ift be true ; 
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 
Will do as if for surety.^^ He holds me well ; 
The better shall my purpose work on him. 

50 Traverse is here used as a military term, for march. The usage was 
common. See 2 Henry the Fourth, page 126, note 24. 

^1 I will act as if I were certain of the fact. " He holds me well" is, he 
entertains a good opinion of me. 



8o OTHELLO, ACT IL 

Cassio's a proper ^^ man : let me see now ; 

To get his place, and to plume up my will 

In double knavery — How, how? Let's see : — 

After some time, t' abuse Othello's ear 

That he is too familiar with his wife : 

He hath a person, and a smooth dispose,^^ 

To be suspected ; framed to make women false. 

The Moor is of a free and open nature, 

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so ; 

And will as tenderly be led by th' nose 

As asses are. 

I have't ; it is engender'd : Hell and night 

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. \_Exit 



ACT IL 

Scene L — A seaport Town in Cyprus} A P/afform. 
Enter Montano and two Gentlemen. 

Mon. What from the cape can you discern at sea? 

I Gent. Nothing at all : it is a high-wrought flood ; 
I cannot 'twixt the heaven and the main 
Descry a sail. 

52 Proper here, as very often in these plays, means handsome. 

53 Dispose for disposition. Shakespeare has a good many words shortened 
in much the same way. 

1 The principal seaport town of Cyprus is Famagusta ; where there was 
formerly a strong fort and commodious haven, " neare which," says Knolles, 
" standeth an old castle, with four towers after the ancient manner of build- 
ing." To this castle we find that Othello presently repairs. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 8 1 

Mon. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land ; 
A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements : 
If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea, 
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them, 
Can hold the mortise ? What shall we hear of this ? 

2 Gent. A segregation of the Turkish fleet : 
For, do but stand upon the foaming shore. 
The chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds ; 

The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,^ 
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,^ 
And quench the guards of th' ever-fixed pole : 
I never did like molestation view 
On the enchafed flood. 

Mon. If that the Turkish fleet 

Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they're drown'd ; 
It is impossible they bear it out. 

Enter a third Gentleman. 

S Gent. News, lads ! our wars are done. 
The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks, 
That their designment halts : a noble ship of Venice 
Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance 
On most part of their fleet. 

Mon. How ! is this true ? 

3 Gent. The ship is here put in, 
La Veronesa ; ^ Michael Cassio, 

2 There is implied a comparison of the " wind-shaked surge " to the war- 
horse ; the Poet probably having in mind the passage of Job : " Hast thou 
given the horse strength ? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder ? " 

3 The constellation near the polar star. The next Hne alludes to the star 
Arctophylax, which literally signifies the guard of the bear. 

4 Veronesa refers to the ship. It is true, the same speaker has just called 



82 OTHELLO, ACT ii. 

Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello, 

Is come on shore : the Moor himself s at sea, 

And is in full commission here for Cyprus. 

Mon. I'm glad on't ; 'tis a worthy governor. 

J Gent. But this same Cassio, — though he speak of 
comfort 
Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly, 
And prays the Moor be safe \ for they were parted 
With foul and violent tempest. 

Mon. Pray Heavens he be ; 

For I have served him, and the man commands 
Like a full soldier.^ Let's to the seaside, ho ! 
As well to see the vessel that's come in 
As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello, 
Even till we make the main and th' aerial blue 
An indistinct regard.^ 

J Gent. Come, let's do so ; 

For every minute is expectancy 
Of more arrivance. 

Enter Cassio. 

Cas. Thanks to the valiant of this warlike isle, 
That so approve the Moor ! O, let the Heavens 
Give him defence against the elements. 
For I have lost him on a dangerous sea ! 

the ship " a noble ship of Venice "; but Verona was tributary to the Vene- 
tian State ; so that there is no reason why she might not belong to Venice, 
and still take her name from Verona. 

5 " Kfull soldier " is a complete ox finished soldier. See page 51, note 14. 

6 That is, " till, to our vision, the sea and the sky so melt into each other 
as to be in distinguishable T — Here may be fitly quoted one of Coleridge's 
notes : " Observe in how many ways Othello is made, first our acquaintance, 
then our friend, then the object of our anxiety, before the deeper interest is 
to be approached." 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 83 

Mon. Is he well shipp'd ? 

Cas. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot 
Of very Expert and approved allowance ; ^ 
Therefore my hopes, not suffocate to death, 
Stand in bold cure.^ 

[ Within^ A sail, a sail, a sail ! 

Enter a fourth Gentleman. 

Cas. What noise ? 

4 Gent. The town is empty ; on the brow o' the sea 
Stand ranks of people, and they cry A sail ! 

Cas. My hopes do shape him for the governor. 

\^Guns heard. 

2 Gent. They do discharge their shot of courtesy : 
Our friends at least. 

Cas. I pray you, sir, go forth. 

And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived. 

2 Gent. I shall. \^Exit. 

Mon. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived ? 

Cas. Most fortunately : he hath achieved a maid 
That paragons description and wild fame ; 
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, 
And in th' essential vesture of creation 



■^ Of allowed and approved expertness. Allowance, in old English, some- 
times means estimation. See Hajnlet, page 134, note 6. 

8 Cassio, though anxious, does not despair ; and the meaning of " Stand 
in bold cure " seems to be, " my hopes, though near dying, stay themselves 
upon, or are kept alive by, bold conjecture " ; or, it may be, " are confident oi 
being cured." See Kitig Lear, page 150, note 15. — Suffocate, of course, for 
suffocated. So in Troilus and Cressida, i. 3 : " This chaos, when degree is 
suffocate, follows the choking." Shakespeare has many preterites formed in 
the same way ; as " one of an ingraft infirmity," in the third scene of this 
Act. 



84 OTHELLO, ACT IL 

Does tire the ingener.^ 

Re-ettter second Gentleman. 

How now ! who has put in ? 

2 Gent. 'Tis one lago, ancient to the general. 

Cas. He's had most favourable and liappy speed. 
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds. 
The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands, — 
Traitors ensteep'd ^^ to clog the guiltless keel, — 
As having sense of beauty, do omit 
Their mortal ii natures, letting go safely by 
The divine Desdemona. 

Mon. What is she ? 

Cas. She that I spake of, our great captain's captain, 
Left in the conduct of the bold lago ; 
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts 
A se'nnight's speed. — Great God, Othello guard, 
And swell his sail with Thine own powerful breath, 

9 By " the essential vesture of creation " the Poet means, apparently, her 
outward form, which in 772.? Merchant of Venice he calls " the muddy ves- 
ture of decay." The meaning of the whole clause seems to be, " She is one 
who surpasses all description, and in real beauty, or outward form, goes be- 
yond the power of the artist's inventive or expressive pencil." It appears 
that inginer or ingener was sometimes used for painter or artist. So 
Jonson, in his Sejanus, i. i : " No, Silius, we are no good inginers ; we 
want their fine arts," And Flecknoe, speaking of painting, 1664 : " The 
stupendous works of your great ingeniers." — For this use of paragon, see 
Antony and Cleopatra, page 61, note 7. 

10 Ensteep'd here means simply hid in the water, suhnerged ; a frequent 
use of the word. So in The Faerie Queene, i. n : 

Now gan the golden Phoebus for to steepe 
His fierie face in billows of the west, 

11 Mortal is deadly, destructive ; the more common meaning of the word 
in Shakespeare. See Macbeth, page 68, note 6. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 85 

That he may bless this bay with his tall ship, 
Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits, 
And bring all Cyprus comfort ! — O, behold. 

Enter Desdemona, Emilia, Iago, Roderigo, and Attendants. 

The riches of the ship is come on shore ! 
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees. — 
Hail to thee, lady ! and the grace of Heaven, 
Before, behind thee, and on every hand, 
Enwheel thee round ! 

Des. I thank you, valiant Cassio. 

What tidings can you tell me of my lord ? 

Cas. He is not yet arrived ; nor know I aught 
But that he's well, and will be shortly here. 

Des. O, but I fear — How lost you company ? 

Cas. The great contention of the sea and skies 
Parted our fellowship. But, hark ! a sail. 

\lVithin.'\ A sail, a sail ! \^Gu7is heard. 

2 Gent. They give their greeting to the citadel : 
This likewise is a friend. 

Cas. See for the news. — 

\Exit Gentleman. 
Good ancient, you are welcome ; — \To Emilia.] welcome, 

mistress. — 
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, 
That I extend my manners ; 'tis my breeding 
That gives me this bold show of courtesy.^- [^Kissing her. 

12 Observe Othello's " honest," and Cassio's " bold " Iago ; and Cassio's 
full guileless-hearted wishes for the safety and love-raptures of Othello and 
" the divine Desdemona." And note also the exquisite circumstance of Cas- 
sio's kissing lago's wife, as if it ought to be impossible that the dullest 
auditor should not feel Cassio's religious love of Desdemona's purity. lago's 



S6 OTHELLO, ACT II. 

/ago. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips 
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me. 
You'd have enough. 

Des. Alas, she has no speech. 

/ago. In faith, too much ; 
I find it still, when I have list to sleep : 
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant. 
She puts her tongue a little in her heart. 
And chides with thinking. 

Emil. You have little cause to say so. 

/ago. Come on, come on ; you're pictures out of doors, 
Bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens, 
Saints in your injuries,i^ devils being offended. 

Des. O, fie upon thee, slanderer ! 

/ago. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk. 

Emil. You shall not write my praise. 

/ago. No, let me not. 

Des. What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst 
praise me ? 

/ago. O gentle lady, do not put me to't ; 
For I am nothing, if not critical. 

Des. Come on, assay. There's one gone to the harbour? 

/ago. Ay, madam. 

Des. I am not merry ; but I do beguile 
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise. 
Come, how wouldst thou praise me ? 

/ago. I am about it ; but, indeed, my invention 



answers are the sneers which a proud bad intellect feels towards women, and 
expresses to a wife. Surely it ought to be considered a very exalted compli- 
ment to women, that all the sarcasms on them in Shakespeare are put in the 
mouths of villains. — COLERIDGE. 

13 " When you have a mind to do injuries, you put on an air of sanctity." 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 8/ 

Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze, — 

It plucks out brains and all : but my Muse labours, 

And thus she is deliver'd : 

If she be fair and wise, — fairness and wit, 

The one's for use, the other useth it. 

Des. Well praised ! How if she be black and witty ? 

lago. If she be black, and thereto have a wit, 
She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit. 

Des. Worse and worse. 

Emil. How if fair and foohsh ? 

lago. She never yet was foolish that was fair ; 
For even her folly help'd her to an heir. 

Des. These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh 
i' the ale-house. What miserable praise hast thou for her 
that's foul and foolish? 

lago. There's none so foul, and foolish thereunto. 
But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do. 

Des. O heavy ignorance ! thou praisest the worst best. 
But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman 
indeed ; one that, in the authority of her merit, did justly 
put on the vouch of very malice itself? ^^ 

lago. She that was ever fair, and never proud ; 
Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud ; 
Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay ; 
Fled from her wish, and yet said Now I may ; 
She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, 
Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly ; 

14 " The sense," say Warburton, " is this : One that was so conscious of 
her own merit, and of the authority her character had with every one, that 
she durst call upon malice itself to vouch for her. This was strong commen- 
dation. And the character only of clearest virtue ; which could force maUce^ 
even against its nature, to do justice." — To put on is to provoke, to incite. 



8S OTHELLO, ACT IL 

She that in wisdom never was so frail 
To change the cod's head for the sahiion's tail ; ^^ 
She that could think, and ne'er disclose her mind; 
See suitors following, and not look behind ; 
She was a wight, if ever such wight were, — 

Des. To do what? 

lago. — To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.^^ 

Z>es. O most lame and impotent conclusion ! — Do not 
learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. — How 
say you, Cassio ? is he not a most profane and liberal ^^ cen- 
surer ? 

Cas. He speaks home, madam : you may relish him more 
in the soldier than in the scholar. 

/ago. [_Aside.'] He takes her by the palm : ay, well said, 
whisper : with as little a web as this will I ensnare as great 
a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do ; I will gyve thee in 
thine own courtship. ^^ You say true ; 'tis so, indeed : if 
such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had 
been better you had not kiss'd your three fingers so oft, which 
now again you are most apt to play the sir in.^^ Very good ; 
well kiss'd ! an excellent courtesy ! 'tis so, indeed. Yet 
again your fingers to your lips? \_Trumpei within.'] — The 
Moor ! I know his trumpet. 
Cas. 'Tis truly so. 

Des. Let's meet him, and receive him. 
Cas. Lo, where he comes ! 

15 The head was esteemed the best part of a codfish, the tail the worst of 
a salmon. The two are here put for delicate and coarse fare in general. 

16 That is, to suckle children and keep the accounts of the household. 
1'^ Liberal was very often used in the sense of loose-spoken or licentious. 

18 To gyve is io fetter, to shackle. It may be as well to observe that court- 
ship is the same as courtesy, that is, complimentary or courtly behaviour, 

19 To play the sir is to nho"' good breeding and gallantry. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 89 

Enter Othello and Attendants. 

Oth. O my fair warrior ! ^^ 

Des. My dear Othello ! 

Oth. It gives me wonder great as my content 
To see you here before me. O my soul's joy ! 
If after every tempest come such calms, 
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death ! 
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas 
Olympus-high, and duck again as low 
As Hell's from Heaven ! If it were now to die, 
'Twere now to be most happy ; for, I fear, 
My soul hath her content so absolute. 
That not another comfort like to this 
Succeeds in unknown fate. 

Des. The Heavens forbid 

But that our loves and comforts should increase. 
Even as our days do grow ! 

Oth. Amen to that, sweet powers ! — 

I cannot speak enough of this content ; 
It stops me here ; it is too much of joy : 
And this, and this, the greatest discords be {^Kissing her. 

That e'er our hearts shall make ! 

lago. \_Aside^ O, you are well tuned now ! 

But I'll set down the pegs that make this music, 
As honest as I am.^i 

20 Perhaps Othello intends a playful allusion to the unwillingness Desde- 
mona has expressed to " be left behind, a moth of peace, and he go to the 
war." Steevens, however, thinks it was a term of endearment derived from 
the old French Poets; as Ronsard, in his Sonnets, often calls the ladies 
guerrieres. 

21 Coleridge pronounces lago " a being next to devil, and only not quite 
devil." It is worth noting that Milton's Satan relents at the prospect of 



90 OTHELLO, ACT IL 

0th. Come, let us to the castle. — 

News, friends ; our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd. 
How does my old acquaintance of this isle? — 
Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus ; 
I've found great love amongst them. O my sweet, 
I prattle out of fashion,^^ and I dote 
In mine own comforts. — I pr'ythee, good lago, 
Go to the bay and disembark my coffers : 
Bring thou the master to the citadel ; 
He is a good one, and his worthiness 
Does challenge much respect. — Come, Desdemona, 
Once more well met at Cyprus. 

\_Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants. 

lago. Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. Come 
hither. It thou be'st valiant, — as, they say, base men being 
in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is 
native to them, — list me. The lieutenant to-night watches 
on the court-of-guard.23 First, I must tell thee this, Desde- 
mona is directly in love with him. 

Rod. With him ! why, 'tis not possible. 

lago. Lay thy finger thus,^^ and let thy soul be instructed. 
Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor, but 
for bragging, and telling her fantastical lies : and will she 
love him still for prating? let not thy discreet heart think it. 
Her eye must be fed ; and what delight shall she have to 

ruining the happiness before him, and prefaces the deed with a gush of pity 
for the victims ; whereas the same thought puts lago in a transport of jubi- 
lant ferocity. Is our idea of Satan's wickedness enhanced by his thus in- 
dulging such feelings, and then acting in defiance of them, or as if he had 
them not ? or is lago more devilish than he ? 

22 Out of method, without any settled order of discourse. 

23 The place where the guard musters. 

24 On thy mouth to stop it, while thou art hstening to a wiser man. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 9I 

look on the Devil P^-^ When the blood is made dull, there 
should be — again to inflame it — lovehness in favour, sympa- 
thy in years, manners, and beauties ; all which the Moor is de- 
fective in. Now, for want of these required conveniences,^^ 
her delicate tenderness will find itself abused, begin to heave 
the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor ; very nature will in- 
struct her in it, and compel her to some second choice. Now, 
sir, this granted, — as it is a most pregnant ^^ and unforced 
position, — who stands so eminent in the degree of this for- 
tune as Cassio does ? a knave very voluble ; no further con- 
scionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and hu- 
mane seeming, for the better compassing of his salt ^^ and 
most hidden-loose affection ? why, none ; why, none : a 
slipper and subtle knave ; a finder-out of occasions ; that 
has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages, though true 
advantage never present itself; a devilish knave ! Besides, 
the knave is handsome, young, and hath all those requisites 
in him that folly and green minds look after : a pestilent- 
complete knave ; and the woman hath found him already. 

Rod. I cannot believe that in her; she's full of most 
blessed condition. ^^ 

lago. Blessed fig's-end ! the wine she drinks is made of 
grapes : if she had been bless'd, she would never have loved 

25 Another characteristic fling at Othello's colour. See page 52, note 17. 

26 Convenience in the Latin sense of fitness, harmony, accordance. 

27 Pregnant isplam, manifest, ox full of proof in itself. 

28 This peculiar use of salt occurs several times in Shakespeare. So in 
Measure for Measure, v. i: "Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd 
your well-defended honour." — Hidden-loose is secretly licentious. A similar 
phrase occurs in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, ii. i : " His course 
is so irregular, so loose-affected and depriv'd of grace." Here loose-affected 
is licentiously disposed. — Conscionable, line before, is conscientious, 

29 Condition, as usual, for temper or disposition. Qualities oi mind and 
heart in general were included under the term. 



92 OTHELLO, ACT II. 

the Moor. Blessed pudding ! Didst thou not see her paddle 
with the palm of his hand ? didst not mark that ? 

Rod. Yes, that I did ; but that was but courtesy. 

lago. By this hand, an index "^^ and obscure prologue to 
the history of foul thoughts. But, sir, be you ruled by 
me : I have brought you from Venice. Watch you to- 
night ; for the command, I'll lay't upon you : Cassio knows 
you not. I'll not be far from you : do you find some 
occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or 
tainting his disciphne;^^ or from what other course you 
please, which the time shall more favourably minister. 

Rod. Well. 

lago. Sir, he is rash, and very sudden in choler, and 
haply may strike at you : provoke him, that he may ; for 
even out of that will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny ; 
whose qualification 32 shall come into no true taste again but 
by the displanting of Cassio. So shall you have a shorter 
journey to your desires, by the means I shall then have to 
prefer them ; and the impediment most profitably removed, 
without the which there were no expectation of our pros- 
perity. 

Rod. I will do this, if I can bring it to any opportunity. 

lago. I warrant thee. Meet me by-and-by at the citadel : 
I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell. 

Rod. Adieu. \^Exit 

lago. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it ; 
That she loves him, 'tis apt, and of great credit : ^^ 

30 Indexes were ioxmftiXy prefixed \o books. See Hamlet, page 158, note 5. 

31 Throwing a slur upon his discipline. 

32 Qualification, in our old writers, signifies appeasement, pacification, 
assuagement of anger. " To appease and qualifie one that is angry ; traU' 
quillum facere ex irato." — Baret. 

33 Credit for credibility, aptness to be believed. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 93 

The Moor — howbeit that I endure him not — 

Is of a constant-loving noble nature ; 

And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona 

A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too ; 

Not out of absolute lust, — though peradventure 

I stand accountant for as great a sin, — 

But partly led to diet my revenge, '" " -^ 

For that I do suspect the lusty Moor ) 

Hath tamper'd with my wife : the thought whereof / 

Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards ; ! 

And nothing can or shall content my soul / 

Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife ; / 

Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor 

At least into a jealousy so strong 

That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do. 

If this poor brach of Venice, whom I trash ^^ 

For his quick hunting, stand the putting-on,^^ 

I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip ; 

Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb ; ^^ 

34 Brack, according to an old definition in Spelman's Glossary, is a 
scenting dog, " or any fine-nosed hound." To trash is to check, restrain, or 
keep back, as when a hound is too eager and forward in the chase. The 
word is fitly used here of Roderigo who, in his quest of Desdemona, is too 
impatient for the end to stay for what lago deems the necessary operation 
of time and means. See The Tempest, page 52, note 19. 

35 The figure of a hound is still kept up. " The putting-on " is the incit- 
ing or the setting-on, as of dogs ; so explained in note 14 of this scene. lago's 
thought appears to be that Roderigo may not hold out in his quest ; that from 
his very eagerness he may grow weary of the instigations, and give over in 
disgust, or refuse to stand through the process. 

^C " In the rank garb " is merely in the right-down, or straight- forward 
style. In King Lear, Cornwall says of Kent in disguise, that he " doth 
affect a saucy roughness, and constrains the garb quite from his nature." 
Gower says of Fluellen, in King Henry V., " You thought, because he could 
not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an Eng- 
lish cudgel." 



94 OTHELLO, ACT II. 

Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me, 

For making him egregiously an ass. 

And practising upon his peace and quiet 

Even to madness. ^^ 'Tis here, but yet confused : 

Knavery's plain face is never seen till used. \_Exit. 

Scene IL — A Street. 

Enter a Herald with a Proclamation ; Vqo^Xq follo7ving. 

Her. It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant gene- 
ral, that, upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the 
mere perdition i of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself 
into triumph ; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each 
man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him : for, 
besides these beneficial news, it is the celebration of his 
nuptial. So much was his pleasure should be proclaim'd. 
All offices 2 are open; and there is full liberty of feasting 

37 Here we have, perhaps, the most appalling outcome of lago's proper 
character, namely, a pride of intellect, or lust of the brain, which exults 
above all things in being able to make himself and others pass for just the 
reverse of what they are ; that is, in being an overmatch for truth and Na- 
ture themselves. And this soliloquy is, I am apt to think, Shakespeare's 
supreme instance of psychogogic subtilty and insight ; as it is also lago's 
most pregnant disclosure of his real springs of action, or what Colendge 
aptly calls "the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity." For it is not 
that lago really believes or suspects that either Cassio or Othello has 
wronged him in the way he intimates : he is merely seeking to opiate or 
appease certain qualms of conscience by a sort of extemporized make- 
.believe in that kind. The purpose he has conceived against them is, as 
Coleridge says, "too fiendish for his own steady view, — for the lonely gaze 
of a being next to devil, and only not quite devil." 

1 " The mere perdition " is the entire loss or destruction. This use of 
m.ere is frequent with the Poet. 

2 AH rooms ox places in the castle, at which refreshments are prepared or 
served out. See Macbeth, page 79, note 3. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 95 

from this present hour of five till the bell have told eleven. 
Heaven bless the isle of Cyprus and our noble general 
Othello ! {^Exeunt 



Scene III. — A Hall in the Castle. 
Enter Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and Attendants. 

0th. Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night : 
Let's teach ourselves that honourable stop, 
Not to outsport discretion. 

Cas. lago hath direction what to do ; 
But, notwithstanding, with my personal eye 
Will I look to't. 

0th. lago is most honest. 

Michael, good night : to-morrow with your earliest 
Let me have speech with you. — \To Desdemona.] Come, 

my dear love. — 
Good night. [Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants. 

Enter Iago. 

Cas. Welcome, lago ; we must to the watch. 

Iago. Not this hour, lieutenant ; 'tis not yet ten o' the 
clock. Our general cast us ^ thus early for the love of his 
Desdemona ; who let us not therefore blame. 

Cas. She's a most exquisite lady. 

Iago. What an eye she has ! methinks it sounds a parley 
to provocation. 

Cas. An inviting eye ; and yet methinks right modest. 

Iago. And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love ? 

1 " Cast us " is dismissed us ; rid himself of our company. One of lago's 
sly thrusts, or covert slurs. 



96 OTHELLO, ACT IL 

Cas. She is, indeed, perfection. 

/ago. Well, happiness to them ! Come, lieutenant, I have 
a stoup of wine ; and here without are a brace of Cyprus 
gallants that would fain have a measure to the health of black 
Othello. 

Cas, Not to-night, good lago : I have very poor and un- 
happy brains for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would 
invent some other custom of entertainment. 

lago, O, they are our friends ; but one cup : I'll drink 
for you. 

Cas. I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was 
craftily qualified too,^ and, behold, what innovation it makes 
here : I am unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task 
my weakness with any more. 

lago. What, man ! 'tis a night of revels : the gallants 
desire it. 

Cass. Where are they? 

Jago. Here at the door ; I pray you, call them in. 

Cass. I'll do't ; but it dislikes me.^ \^Exit. 

lago. If I can fasten but one cup upon him, 
With that which he hath drunk to-night already, 
He'll be as full of quarrel and off"ence 
As my young mistress' dog. Now, my sick fool Roderigo, 
Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out, 
To Desdemona hath to-night caroused 
Potations pottle-deep ; and he's to watch : 
Three lads of Cyprus — noble swelling spirits, 
That hold their honours in a wary distance,"* 

2 " Craftily qualified " is slily mixed with water, diluted. 

3 " It dislikes me " is it displeases me, or / dislike it. Often so. 

4 Who guard their honour from the least approach to insult ; as in tiie 
description of a soldier in As You Like It, " Jealous in honour, sudden and 
quick in quarrel." 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 9/ 

The very elements ^ of this warhke isle — 

Have I to-night fluster'd with flowing cups, 

And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards, 

Am I to put our Cassio in some action 

That may offend the isle. But here they come : 

If consequence do but approve my dream,^ 

My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream. 

Re-enter Qassio, followed by Montano, Gentlemen, and Ser- 
vant with wine. 

Cas. 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse '^ already. 
Man. Good faith, a little one ; not past a pint, as I am a 
soldier. 

lago. Some wine, ho ! 

[Sings.] And let me the canakin clink, clink; 
And let me the canakin clink ! 
A soldier's a man ; 
A lifers but a span ; 
Why, then let a soldier drink / 

Some wine, boys ! 

Cas. 'Fore God, an excellent song. 

lago. I learn'd it in England, where, indeed, they are 
most potent in potting : your Dane, your German, and your 
Hollander, — Drink, ho ! — are nothing to your English. 

Cas. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking? 

lago. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead 

s As quarrelsome as the discordia semina rerum ; as quick in opposition 
as fire and water. 

6 Every scheme subsisting only in the imagination may be termed a 
dream. — Consequence for issue or result. 

"' Rouse is the same in sense and in origin as our word carouse. 



98 OTHELLO, ACT II. 

drunk ; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain ; he gives 
your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle can be fill'd.^ 

Cas. To the health of our general ! 

Mon. I am for it, lieutenant ; and I'll do you justice.^ 

lago. O sweet England ! 

[Sings.] King Stephen was a worthy peer, 

His breeches cost him but a crown ; 
He held them sixpence all too dear, 
With that he calPd the tailor town. 

He was a wight of high renown, 

And thou art but of low degree : 
^Tis pi'ide that pulls the country down ; 

Then take thine auld cloak about thee}^ 

Some wine, ho ! 

Cas, Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other. 
lago. Will you hear't again ? 

8 In The Captain of Beaumont and Fletcher, one of the persons asks, 
" Are the Englishmen such stubborn drinkers ? " and another answers thus : 
" Not a leak at sea can suck more liquor : you shall have their children 
christened in muU'd sack, and at five years old able to knock a Dane down." 
And in Henry Peacham's Compleat Gentlemaft, 1622, we have the following : 
" Within these fiftie or threescore yeares it was a rare thing with us to see a 
drunken man. But, since we had to doe in the quarrell of the Netherlands, 
the custom of drinking and pledging healthes was brought over into England ; 
wherein let the Dutch be their owne judges, if we equall them not ; yea, I 
think, rather excel! them / — In the text, as elsewhere, pottle is used as a 
general term for a drinking-cup. So a little before, " caroused potations 
pottle-deep"; which means emptied the cup, or, in pot-house language, 
pledged her to the bottojn. 

9 In the old pot-house cant or slang, to do a man justice, or to do him 
right, was to keep up with him in drinking. 

10 These stanzas are copied, with a few slight variations, from an old 
ballad entitled " Take thy old Cloak about thee," which is reprinted entire 
in Percy's Reliques. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 99 

Cas. No ; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place 
that does those things. Well, God's above all ; and there 
be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be 
saved. 

lago. It's true, good lieutenant. 

Cas. For mine own part, — no offence to the general, nor 
any man of quality, — I hope to be saved. 

lago. And so do I too, lieutenant, 

Cas. Ay, but, by your leave, not before me ; the lieu- 
tenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let's have no 
more of this ; let's to our affairs. — Forgive us our sins ! — 
Gentlemen, let's look to our business. Do not think, gentle- 
men, I am drunk : this is my ancient ; this is my right hand, 
and this is my left. I am not drunk now ; I can stand well 
enough, and speak well enough. 

All. Excellent well. 

Cas. Why, very well, then ; you must not think, then, 
that I am drunk. [^Exif. 

Mon. To th' platform, masters ; come, let's set the watch. 

lago. You see this fellow that is gone before : 
He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar 
And give direction ; ^^ and do but see his vice : 
'Tis to his virtue a just equinox. 
The one as long as th' other : 'tis pity of him. 
I fear the trust Othello puts in him. 
On some odd time of his infirmity, 
Will shake this island. 

Mon. But is he often thus ? 

lago. 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep : 

11 How differently the liar speaks of Cassio's soldiership to Montane and 
to Roderigo ! He is now talking where he is liable to be called to account 
for his words. I ^ >. 



ICMD OTHELLO, ACT ll. 

He'll watch the horologe a double set,!^ 
If drink rock not his cradle. 

AIo7i. It were well 

The general were put in mind of it. 
Perhaps he sees it not ; or his good nature 
Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio, 
And look? not on his evils : is not this true ? 

Enfer Roderigo. 

lago. \_Aside to Roderigo.] How now, Roderigo ! 
I pray you, after the lieutenant ; go. [Exit Roderigo. 

Mon. And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor 
Should hazard such a place as his own second 
With one of an ingraft infirmity : 
It were an honest action to say 
So to the Moor. 

lago. Not I, for this fair island : 

I do love Cassio well ; and would do much 
To cure him of this evil, — But, hark ! what noise ? 

\_Cry within, Help ! help ! 

Re-enter Cassio, driving in Roderigo. 

Cas. You rogue ! you rascal ! 

Mon. What's the matter, lieutenant? 

Cas. A knave teach me my duty ! 
I'll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle. ^^ 
Rod. Beat me ! 
Cas. Dost thou prate, rogue ? 

\_Striki?ig Roderigo. 

1^ If he have no drink, he'll keep awake while the clock strikes two 
rounds, or four-and-twenty hours. The word horologe is familiar to most 
of our ancient writers : Chaucer often uses it. 

13 " A twiff^en bottle " is a bottle enclosed in wicker-work of fwips. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. lOI 

Mon. Nay, good lieutenant ; 

\_Stayiiig him. 
I pray you, sir, hold your hand. 

Cas. Let me go, sir, 

Or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard. 

Mon. Come, come, you're drunk. 

Cas. Drunk! {^They fight. 

lago. \_Aside to Roderigo.] Away, I say ; go out, and 
cry a mutiny ! — \^Exit Roderigo. 

Nay, good lieutenant, — alas, gentlemen ! — 
Help, ho ! — Lieutenant, — sir, — Montano, — sir ; — 
Help, masters ! — Here's a goodly watch indeed ! 

\_Bell rings. 
Who's that which rings the bell? — Diablo, ho ! 
The town will rise : — God's will, lieutenant, hold ! 
You will be shamed for ever. 

Re-enter Othello and Attendants. 

Oth. What is the matter here ? 

Mon. Zounds, I bleed still ! I am hurt to th' death. 

[^Faints. 

Oth. Hold, for your lives ! 

lago. Hold, ho ! Lieutenant, — sir, — Montano, — gentle- 
men ! 
Have you forgot all sense of place and duty ? Hold ! 
The general speaks to you ; hold, hold, for shame ! 

Oth. Why, how now, ho ! from whence ariseth this ? 
Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that 
Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites? 
For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl ! 
He that stirs next to carve for his own rage 
Holds his soul light ; he dies upon his motion. — 



I02 OTHELLO, ACT II, 

Silence that dreadful bell ! it frights the isle 
From her propriety. — What is the matter, masters ? — 
Honest lago, that look'st dead with grieving, 
Speak, who began this ? on thy love, I charge thee. 

lago. I do not know : friends all but now, even now. 
In quarter,!^ and in terms like bride and groom 
Devesting them for bed ; and then, but now — 
As if some planet had unwitted men — 
Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast, 
In opposition bloody. I cannot speak 
Any beginning to this peevish i^ odds ; 
And would in action glorious I had lost 
Those legs that brought me to a part of it ! 

0th. How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot ? ^^ 

Cas. I pray you, pardon me ; I cannot speak. 

0th. Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil ; 
The gravity and stillness of your youth 
The world hath noted, and your name is great 
In mouths of wisest censure : ^"^ what's the matter. 
That you unlace your reputation thus. 
And spend your rich opinion ^^ for the name 
Of a night-brawler ? give me answer to it. 

Mon. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger : 
Your officer, lago, can inform you — 

14 " In quarter " means, apparently, on their station ; the place of duty 
assigned them. 

15 Peevish here \s foolish or silly ; a common use of the word in Shake- 
speare's time. 

16 That you have thus forgot yourself. 

1'^ Censure \s judgment ; as the word was constantly used. 

18 Opinion for reputation or character occurs in other places. — Spend in 
the sense of waste, spoil, or throw away. — To unlace is to ungird, to lay 
bare, to expose. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. IO3 

While I spare speech, which something now offends me — 

Of all that I do know : nor know I aught 

By me that's said or done amiss this night ; 

Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice, 

And to defend ourselves it be a sin 

When violence assails us. 

0th. Now, by Heaven, 

My blood begins my safer guides to rule ; 
And passion, having my best judgment collied,!^ 
Assays to lead the way : if I once stir. 
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you 
Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know 
How this foul rout began, who set it on ; 
And he that is approved in ^^ this offence, 
Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth. 
Shall lose me. What ! in a town with war 
Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear. 
To manage private and domestic quarrel, 
In night, and on the court of guard and safety ! 
'Tis monstrous. — lago, who began't? 

Mon. If, partially affined, or leagued in office,^! 
Thou dost deliver more or less than truth. 
Thou art no soldier. 

lago. Touch me not so near : 

I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth 
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio; 
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth 



19 Collied is blackened, as with smut or coal, and figuratively means here 
obscured, darkened. 

20 Approved in means proved to be in. 

21 If, rendered partial or drawn into partiality, by official fellowship, 
affinity, or sympathy. 



I04 OTHELLO, ACT 

Shall nothing wrong him. — Thus it is, general i 

Montano and myself being in speech, 

There comes a fellow crying out for help ; - 

And Cassio following with determined sword 

To execute upon him.^^ Sir, this gentleman 

Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause : 

Myself the crying fellow did pursue, 

Lest by his clamour — as it so fell out — 

The town might fall in fright : he, swift of foot, 

Outran my purpose ; and I return 'd the rather 

For that I heard the clink and fall of swords. 

And Cassio high in oath ; which till to-night 

I ne'er might say before. When I came back, — 

For this was brief, — I found them close together, 

At blow and thrust ; even as again they were 

When you yourself did part them. 

More of this matter cannot I report : 

But men are men ; the best sometimes forget. 

Though Cassio did some little wrong to him, — 

As men in rage strike those that wish them best, — 

Yet, surely, Cassio, I believe, received 

From him that fled some strange indignity, 

Which patience could not pass. 

Of/i. I know, lago, 

Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter. 
Making it light to Cassio. — Cassio, I love thee ; 
But never more be officer of mine. — 

Re-e7iter Desdemona, attended. 
Look, if my gentle love be not raised up ! — 

22 The construction is, " with sword, determined to execute upon him." 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. IO5 

I'll make thee an example. 

Des, What's the matter ? 

0th. All's well now, sweeting ; come away to bed. — 
Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon. — 

[ To MoNTANO, who is led off. 
lago, look with care about the town, 
And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted. — 
Come, Desdemona : 'tis the soldiers' life 
To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife. 

\_Exemit all but Iago and Cassio. 

lago. What, are you hurt, heutenant? 

Cas. Ay, past all surgery. 

Iago. Marry, Heaven forbid ! 

Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation ! O, I have lost 
my reputation ! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and 
what remains is bestial, — My reputation, Iago, my reputa- 
tion ! 

Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received 
some bodily wound ; there is more offence in that than in 
reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition ; 
oft got without merit, and lost without deserving : jyou have 
lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such 
a loser. What, man ! there are ways to recover the general 
again : you are but now cast in his mood,^^ ^ punishment 
more in policy than in malice ; even so as one would beat 
his offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion : sue to him 
again, and he's yours. 

Cas. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so 
good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indis- 
creet an officer. Drunk, and speak parrot? and squabble, 
swagger, swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shad- 
es Thrown off, or dismissed in a fla^ or fit of anger. 



I06 OTHELLO, ACT II. 

ow? — O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name 
to be known by, let us call thee devil ! 

lago. What was he that you follow'd with your sword? 
What had he done to you ? 

Cas. I know not. 

lago. Is't possible ? 

Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly ; 
a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. — O God, that men should 
put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains ! 
that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, 
transform ourselves into beasts ! 

lago. Why, but you are now well enough : how came you 
thus recovered? 

Cas. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place 
to the devil wrath : one unperfectness shows me another, to 
make me frankly despise myself, 

lago. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, 
the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could 
heartily wish this had not befallen ; but, since it is as it is, 
mend it for your own good. 

Cas. I will ask him for my place again ; he shall tell me 
I am a drunkard ! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such 
an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, 
by-and-by a fool, and presently a beast ! O strange ! Every 
inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil. 

lago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, 
if it be well used : exclaim no more against it. And, good 
heutenant, I think you think I love you. 

Cas. I have well approved it, sir. — I drunk ! 

lago. You or any man living may be drunk at some time, 
man. I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife 
is now the general : I may say so in this respect, for that 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. IO7 

he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, 
mark, and denotement of her parts and graces. Confess 
yourself freely to her; importune her help to put you in 
your place again : she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed 
a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do 
more than she is requested. This broken joint between you 
and her husband entreat her to splinter ; and, my fortunes 
against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall 
grow stronger 2^ than it was before. . 

Cas. You advise me well. 

lago. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kind- 
ness. 

Cas. I think it freely ; ^^ and betimes in the morning I 
will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me. I 
am desperate of my fortunes if they check me here. 

lago. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant ; I 
must to the watch. 

Cas. Good night, honest lago. [^Exif. 

lago. And what's he, then, that says I play the villain? 
When this advice is free I give and honest, 
Probal^^ to thinking, and, indeed, the course 
To win the Moor again ? For 'tis most easy 
Th' inclining 2'^ Desdemona to subdue 
In any honest suit : she's framed as fruitful ^^ 
As the free elements. And then for her 

24 A piece of verbal disorder, but clear enough in the meaning : " your 
love shall grow stronger for this crack." 

25 I believe it willingly ; without any protestation on your part. 

26 Probal is probable ; perhaps a word of the Poet's own coining, used 
for metrical convenience. 

2'7 Inclining here signifies compliant, or yielding. 

28 Corresponding to benigna. Liberal, bountiful as the elements, out of 
which all things are produced. 



I08 OTHELLO, ACT II, 

To win the Moor, — were't to renounce his baptism, 

All seals and symbols of redeemed sin, — 

His soul is so enfetter'd to her love. 

That she may make, unmake, do what she list, 

Even as her appetite shall play the god 

With his weak function. How am I, then, a villain 

To counsel Cassio to this parallel course 

Directly to his good ? ^^ Divinity of Hell ! 

When devils will the blackest sins put on, 

They do suggest ^o at first with heavenly shows, 

As I do now : for whiles this honest fool 

Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes. 

And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, 

I'll pour this pestilence into his ear, — 

That she repeals ^^ him for dishonest cause ; 

And, by how much she strives to do him good. 

She shall undo her credit with the Moor. 

So will I turn her virtue into pitch ; 

And out of her own goodness make the net 

That shall enmesh them all. — 

Re-enter Roderigo. 

How now, Roderigo ! 
Rod. I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that 
hunts, but one that fills up the cry.^^ My money is almost 

29 The order is, " this course directly parallel to his good." Parallel to is 
coinciding with, and good s what he thinks good ; his wish. 

30 " When devils will instigate to ttieir blackest sins, they tempt" &c. 
This use of put on has occurred before. See page 86, note 14. — Suggest 
and its cognates in the sense oi tempt occurs frequently. 

31 Repeal in the sense of recall or restore, 

32 Cry for pack : so used in the language of the chase. See Hamlet 
page 145, note 43. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. IO9 

spent : I have been to-night exceedingly well cndgell'd ; and 
I think the issue will be, I shall have so mucli experience for 
my pains; and so, with no money at all, and a little more wit, 
return again to Venice. 

lago. How poor are they that have not patience ! 
What wound did ever heal but by degrees ? 
Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft ; 
And wit depends on dilatory time. 
Does't not go well ? Cassio hath beaten thee. 
And thou, by that small hurt, hast cashier'd Cassio. 
Though other things grow fair against the Sun, 
Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe : ^^ 
Content thyself awhile. By th' Mass, 'tis morning ; 
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. 
Retire thee ; go where thou art billeted.^"* 
Away, I say ; thou shalt know more hereafter : 
Nay, get thee gone. \_Exif Roderigo.]. — Two things are 

to be done : 
My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress ; 
I'll set her on : 

Myself the while to draw the Moor apart. 
And bring him jump ^^ when he may Cassio find 
Soliciting his wife : ay, that's the way ; 
Dull not device by coldness and delay. ^ \^Exit. 



(5 



33 This is rather obscure ; but the meaning seems to be, " Though, in the 
sunshine of good luck, the other parts of our scheme are promising well, 
yet we must expect that the part which first meets with opportunity, or time 
of blossom, will soonest come to harvest, or catch success." lago wants to 
possess Roderigo's mind with the triumph that has crowned their first step, 
that from thence he may take heart and hope for the rest of the course. 

34 Retire thee is withdraw thyself. " Where thou art billeted " was the 
camp phrase for " where your lodging is assigned." From the tickets or 
dillets that designated the quarters, and authorized the holders to claim them. 

35 Jump for exactly ox just. Repeatedly so. See Hamlet, page 49, note 14. 



no OTHELLO, 



ACT III. 



Scene I. — Cyprus. Before the Castle. 

Enter Cassio and some Musicians. 

Cas. Masters, play here ; I will content your pains ; 

Something that's brief; and bid Good morro7v^ general.^ 

[Music. 
Enter the Clown. 

Clo. Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, 
that they speak i' the nose thus?^ 

I Mus. How, sir, how ! 

Clo. Are these, I pray you, wind-instruments ? 

I Mus. Ay, marry, are they, sir. 

Clo. O, thereby hangs a tale. But, masters, here's money 
for you ; and the general so likes your music, that he desires 
you, of all loves,^ to make no more noise with it. 

I Mus. Well, sir, we will not. 

Clo. If you have any music that may not be heard, to't 
again ; but, as they say, to hear music the general does not 
greatly care. 

1 Mus. We have none such, sir. 

Clo. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away : 
go ; vanish into air ; away ! [Exeunt Musicians. 

lit was usual for friends to serenade a new-married couple on the morn- 
ing after the celebration of the marriage, or to greet them with a morning 
song to bid them good morrow. 

2 Alluding to a certain disease which is said to have appeared first at 
Naples, and which was noted for the mischief it played with the nose. 

3 An old phrase meaning about the same as for love's sake, or by all 
means. It occurs again in The Merry Wives, ii. 2. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF V^ENICE. 1 1 I 

Cas. Dost thou hear, my honest friend ? 

Cio. No, I hear not your honest friend ; I hear you. 

Cas. Pr'ythee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor piece 
of gold for thee : if the gentlewoman that attends the gene- 
ral's wife be stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her 
a little favour of speech : wilt thou do this ? 

Clo. She is stirring, sir : if she will stir hither, I shall 
seem to notify unto her. 

Cas. Do, good my friend. — \^Exit Clown. 

Enter Iago. 

In happy time, Iago. 

Iago. You have not been a-bed, then ? 

Cas. Why, no ; the day had broke 
Before we parted. I've made bold, Iago, 
To send in to your wife : my suit to her 
Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona 
Procure me some access. 

Iago. I'll send her to you presently j 

And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor 
Out of the way, that your converse and business 
May be more free. 

Cas. I humbly thank you for't. . \^Exit Iago.] — I never 
knew 
A Florentine more kind and honest.'* 



4 In consequence of this line a doubt has been entertained concerning 
the country of Iago. Cassio was undoubtedly a Florentine, as appears by 
the first scene of the play, where he is expressly called one. That Iago was 
a Venetian is proved by a speech in the third scene of this Act, and by what 
he says in the fifth Act, after having stabbed Roderigo. All that Cassio 
means to say in the present passage is, " I never experienced more honesty 
and kindness even in one of my own countrymen." 



112 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

Enter Emilia. 

EmiL Good morrow, good lieutenant : I am sorry 
For your displeasure ; ^ but all will sure be well. 
The general and his wife are talking of it ; 
And she speaks for you stoutly : the Moor repHes, 
That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus 
And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom 
He might not but refuse you ; but he protests he loves you, 
And needs no other suitor but his likings 
To take the safest occasion by the front 
To bring you in again. 

Cas. Yet, I beseech you, — 

If you think fit, or that it may be done, — 
Give me advantage of some brief discourse 
With Desdemona alone. 

EmiL Pray you, come in : 

I will bestow you where you shall have time 
To speak your bosom freely. 

Cas. I'm much bound to you. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — A Room in the Castle. 

Enter Othello, Iago, and Gentlemen, 

0th. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot ; 
And, by him, do my duties to the Senate : 
That done, I will be walking on the works ; 

^ " Your displeasure " here means the displeasure you have incurred 
from Othello. An instance of the objective genitive in cases where present 
usage admits only the subjective genitive ; that is, Othello is here regarded 
as the subject of the displeasure, Cassio- as the object of it. Shakespeare 
has many similar expressions. See Hamlet, page 194, note 21. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. II3 

Repair there to me. 

lago. Well, my good lord, I'll do't. 

Oth. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't? 

Gent. We'll wait upon your lordship. \^Exeunt. 



Scene III. — The Garden of the Castle. 
Enter Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia. 

Des. Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do 
All my abilities in thy behalf. 

Emil. Good madam, do : I warrant it grieves my husband, 
As if the case were his. 

Des. O, that's an honest fellow. — Do not doubt, Cassio, 
But I will have my lord and you again 
As friendly as you were. 

Cas. Bounteous madam. 

Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio, 
He's never any thing but your true servant. 

Des. O sir, I thank you. You do love my lord : 
You've known him long ; and be you well assured 
He shall in strangeness stand no further off 
Than in a politic distance. 

Cas. Ay, but, lady, 

That polic}'' may either last so long. 
Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet^ 
Or breed itself so out of circumstance. 
That, I being absent, and my place supplied. 
My general will forget my love and service. ^ 

1 He may either of himself think it politic to keep me out of office so 
long, or he may be satisfied with such slight reasons, or so many accidents 
may make him think my readmission at that time improper, that I may be 
quite forgotten. — JOHNSON. 



114 OTHELLO, ACT III, 

Des. , Do not doubt that ; ^ before Emilia here 
I give thee warrant of thy place. Assure thee, 
If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it 
To the last article : my lord shall never rest ; 
I'll watch him tame,^ and talk him out of patience ; 
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift ; 
I'll intermingle every thing he does 
With Cassio's suit : therefore be merry, Cassio ; 
For thy solicitor shall rather die 
Than give thy cause away. 

Ei)iiL Madam, here comes my lord. 

Cas. Madam, I'll take my leave. 

Des. Why, stay, and hear me speak. 

Cas, Madam, not now : I'm very ill at ease, 
Unfit for mine own purposes. 

Des, Well, do your discretion. \^Exit Cassio. 

Enter Othello aiid Iago. 

lago. Ha ! I like not that. 

0th. What dost thou say? 

Iago. Nothing, my lord ; or if — I know not what. 

0th. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife ? 

Iago. Cassio, my lord ! No, sure, I cannot think it, 
That he would steal away so guilty-like. 
Seeing you coming. 

0th. I do believe 'twas he. 

Des. How now, my lord ! 
I have been talking with a suitor here, 
A man that languishes in your displeasure. 

2 Do no\. fear that. Doubt was often used in the sense oi fear. 

3 Hawks and other birds are tamed by keeping them from sleep. To 
this S'hakespeare alludes. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. II5 

0th. Who is't you mean? 

Des. Why, your Heutenant, Cassio. Good my lord. 
If I have any grace or power to move you, 
His present reconciliation take ; 
/For if he be not one that truly loves you, 
\That errs in ignorance, and not in cunning,^ 
I have no judgment in an honest face. 
I pr'ythee, call him back. 
' 0th. Went he hence now? 

Des. Ay, sooth ; so humbled, 
That he hath left part of his grief with me. 
To suffer with him. Good love, call him back. 

0th. Not now, sweet Desdemon ; some other time. 

Des. But shall't be shortly? 

0th. The sooner, sweet, for you. 

Des. Shall't be to-night at supper? 

0th. No, not to-night. 

Des. To-morrow dinner, then? 

0th. I shall not dine at home ; 

I meet the captains at the citadel. 

Des. Why, then to-morrow night ; or Tuesday morn ; 
On Tuesday noon, or night ; on Wednesday morn : 
I pr'ythee, name the time ; but let it not 
Exceed three days : in faith, he's penitent ; 
And yet his trespass, in our common reason, — 
Save that, they say, the wars must make examples 
Out of the best, — is not almost a fault 
T' incur a private check. When shall he come ? 
Tell me, Othello : I wonder in my soul. 
What you would ask me, that I should deny, 

4 Cunning here means knowledge, an old sense of the word. 



Il6 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

Or stand so mammering on.^ What ! Michael Cassio, 
That came a-wooing with you ; and so many a time, 
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, 
Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to-do ^ 
To bring him in ! Trust me, I could do much, — 

Oth. Pr'ythee, no more : let him come when he will ; 
I will deny thee nothing. 

Des. Why, this is not a boon ; 

'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves, 
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm. 
Or sue to you to do peculiar profit 
To your own person : nay, when I have a suit 
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed. 
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight. 
And fearful to be granted. 

Oth. I will deny thee nothing ; 

Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this. 
To leave me but a little to myself. 

Des. Shall I deny you ? no : farewell, my lord. 

Oth. Farewell, my Desdemona : I'll come to thee straight. 

Des. Emilia, come. — Be as your fancies teach you ; 
Whate'er you be, I am obedient. \^Exit, with Emilia. 

Oth. Excellent wretch,'^ perdition catch my soul, 
But I do love thee ! and, when I love thee not. 
Chaos is come again.^ V 

5 So hesitating, in such doubtful suspense. So in Lyly's Euphues, 1580 : 
" Neither stand in a mamerhig whether it be best to depart or not." 

6 Shakespeare several times has to-do in tlie exact sense of ado. 

7 Wretch, as here used, was the strongest expression of endearment in 
the language. Shakespeare has it repeatedly so. 

s The meaning is, " Ere I cease to love thee, the world itself shall be 
reduced to its primitive chaos." — Bid, again, in its exceptive sense ; but 
that, or, " if I do Hot love thee." See The Merchant, page 121, note 18. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 11/ 

lago. My noble lord, — 

0th. What dost thou say, lago ? 

lago. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady, 
Know of your love ? 

0th. He did, from first to last : ^ why dost thou ask? 

lago. But for a satisfaction of my thought ; 
No further harm. 

0th. Why of thy thought, lago ? 

lago. I did not think he had been acquainted with her. 

Oth. O, yes ; and went between us very oft. 

lago. Indeed ! 

Oth. Indeed ! ay, indeed : discern'st thou aught in that? 
Is he not honest? 

lago. Honest, my lord ! 

Oth. Honest ! ay, honest. 

lago. My lord, for aught I know. 

Oth. What dost thou think ? 

lago. Think, my lord ! 

Oth. Thifik, my lord! — By Heaven, he echoes me, 
As if there were some monster in his thought 
Too hideous to be shown. — Thou dost mean something. 
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that. 
When Cassio left my wife : what didst not like ? 
And, when I told thee he was of my counsel 
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst Indeed! 
And didst contract and purse thy brow together. 
As if thou then hadst, shut up in thy brain, 
Some horrible conceit ! If thou dost love me, 

9 In Act i. sc. 2, when lago, speaking of the Moor to Cassio, says, " He's 
married," Cassio asks, " To whom ? " Yet here he seems to have known 
all about it. The explanation is, that Cassio there feigned ignorance, in 
order to keep his friend's secret till it should be pubUcly known. 



Il8 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

Show me thy thought. 

lago. My lord, you know I love you. 

Oth. I think thou dost ; 

And, for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty, 
And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath. 
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more : 
For such things in a false disloyal knave 
Are tricks of custom ; but in a man that's just 
They're close delations, ^^ working from the heart. 
That passion cannot rule. 

lago. For Michael Cassio, 

I dare be sworn — I think that he is honest.ii 

Oth. I think so too. 

lago. Men should be what they seem ; 

Or, those that be not, would they might seem none ! 

Oth. Certain, men should be what they seem. 

lago. Why, then I think Cassio's an honest man. 

Oth. Nay, yet there's more in this : 
I pr'ythee, speak to me as to thy thinkings. 
As thou dost ruminate ; and give thy worst of thoughts 
The worst of words. 

lago. Good my lord, pardon me : 

Though I am bound to every act of duty, 

10 " Close delations " are secret accusings, intimations, or informations. 
So in Jonson's Volpone, ii. 3 : " Yet, if I do it not, they may delate my slack- 
ness to my patron." — It should be noted, that in all this part of the dialogue 
the doubts started in Othello by the villain's artful insinuations have refer- 
ence only to Cassio. There is not the least sign that the Moor's thoughts 
anywise touch his wife ; and lago seems perplexed that his suspicions have 
lighted elsewhere than he had intended. The circumstance is very material 
in reference to Othello's predispositions, or as regards the origin and nature 
of his "jealousy." 

11 lago is supposed to pause at sworn, and correct himself, as if he were 
speaking with the most scrupulous candour. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. II9 

I am not bound to that all slaves are free to. 

Utter my thoughts? Why, say they're vile and false, — 

As where's that palace whereinto foul things 

Sometimes intrude not ? who has a breast so pure. 

But some uncleanly apprehensions 

Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit 

With meditations lawful ? ^^ 

0/k. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, lago, 
If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and makest his ear 
A stranger to thy thoughts. 

/ago. I do beseech you, — 

Though 13 I perchance am vicious in my guess. 
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague 
To spy into abuses,!"* and oft my jealousy 
Shapes faults that are not, — that your wisdom yet. 
From one that so imperfectly conceits, ^^ 
Would take no notice ; nor build yourself a trouble 



12 Who has so virtuous a breast that some impure conceptions and un- 
charitable surmises will not sometimes enter into it ; hold a session there, 
as in a regular court, and "bench by the side" of authorized and lawful 
thoughts ? A /eei is also called a law-day. " This court, in whose manor 
soever kept, was accounted the king's court, and commonly held every half 
year " : it was a meeting of the hundred " to certify the king of the good 
manners and government of the inhabitants." 

13 Here we seem to have an instance — and there are many such — of 
though used in a causal and not in a concessive sense ; that is, for since or 
inasmuch as. See Twelfth Night, page 78, note 21. 

14 lago here feigns self-distrust, and confesses that he has the natural 
infirmity or plague of a suspicious and prying temper, that he may make 
Othello trust him the more strongly. So men often prate about, and even 
magnify, their own faults, in order to cheat others into a pursuasion of their 
rectitude and candour. 

15 In old language, to conceit is to understand, to judge or conceive. 
The word, both verb and substantive, is always used by Shakespeare in 
that sense, or one closely allied to that, 



1 20 OTHELLO, ACT IIL 

Out of his scattering and unsure observance. 
It were not for your quiet nor your good, 
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom. 
To let you know my thoughts. 

Oth, What dost thou mean ? 

lago. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord. 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls : 
Who steals my purse steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing ; 
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands ; 
But he that filches from me my good name 
Robs me of that which not enriches him. 
And makes me poor indeed. 

Oth. By Heaven, I'll know thy thoughts ! 

lago. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand ; 
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody. 

Oth. Ha! 

lago. O, beware, my lord, of jealousy ! 

It is the green-eyed monster which doth make 
The meat it feeds on : ^^ that husband lives in bhss 
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger ; 
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er 
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves ! 

Oth. O misery ! 

lago. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough \ 
But riches fineless ^"^ is as poor as Winter 

16 Meaning that jealousy is a self-generated passion ; that its causes are 
subjective, or that it lives on v^^hat it imputes, not on what it finds. And 
so Emilia afterwards describes it : " Tis a monster begot upon itself, born on 
itself." lago is, in his way, a consummate metaphysician, and answers per- 
fectly to Burke's description : " Nothing can be conceived more hard than 
the heart of a thorough-br.ed metaphysician. It comes nearer to the cold 
malignity of a wicked spirit than .to the frailty and passion of a man." 

I'i' Tliat is, endless, unbounded. Warburton observes that this is finely 
expressed — Winter producing no fruits. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 121 

To him that ever fears he shall be poor. — 
Good Heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend 
From jealousy ! 

Oth. Why, why is this ? 

Think'st thou I'd make a hfe of jealousy. 
To follow still the changes of the Moon 
With fresh suspicions ? No ; to be once in doubt 
Is once to be resolved : exchange me for a goat, 
When I shall turn the business of my soul 
To such exsufflicate ^^ and blown surmises. 
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous 
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, 
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well ; 
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous : 
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw 
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt ; 
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, lago ! 
I'll see before I doubt j when I doubt, prove ; 
And, on the proof, there is no more but this. 
Away at once with love or jealousy ! 

lago. I'm glad of it ; for now I shall have reason 
To show the love and duty that I bear you 
With franker spirit : therefore, as I'm bound. 
Receive it from me : I speak not yet of proof. 
Look to your wife ; observe her well with Cassio ; 

18 This is the only known instance of exsufflicate. Phillips interprets 
sufflafion " a. puffing up, a. making to swell with blowing." In Plautus we 
have, "Sufflavit nescio quid uxore" ; which Cooper renders, " He hath whis- 
pered something in his wifes eare whatsoever it be." Richardson's expla- 
nation is, "Exsufflicate, in Shakespeare, is not improbably a misprint for 
exsufflate, that is, efflate or efflated, puffed out, and, consequently, exagger- 
ated, extravagant ; to which blown is added, not so much for the sake of a 
second epithet, with a new meaning, as of giving emphasis to the first." 



122 OTHELLO, ACT ill. 

Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure : ^^ 

I would not have your free and noble nature, 

Out of self-bounty,^*' be abused ; look to't. 

I know our country disposition well : 

In Venice they do let Heaven see the pranks 

They dare not show their husbands ; their best conscience 

Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown. 

Oth. Dost thou say so? 

lago. She did deceive her father, marrying you ; 
And, when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks. 
She loved them most.^^ 

Oth. And so she did. 

lago. Why, go to, then ; 

She that, so young, could give out such a seeming, 
To seel her father's eyes up close as oak,^^ — 
He thought 'twas witchcraft, — But I'm much to blame : 
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon 
For too much loving you. 

Oth. I'm bound to thee for ever. 

lago. I see this hath a litde dash'd your spirits. 

Oth. Not a jot, not a jot. 

lago. I'faith, I fear it has. 

I hope you will consider what is spoke 
Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved : 

19 Secure in the Latin sense ; careless, or over-confident. Often so. 

20 Self-bounty here means inherent and spontaneous generosity. 

21 This is one of lago's artfullest strokes. The instinctive shrinkings and 
trembhngs of Desdemona's modest virgin love are ascribed to craft, and 
made to appear a most refined and elaborate course of deception. His 
deep science of human nature enables him to divine how she appeared. 

22 Oak is a tough, close-grained wood. So that close as oak probably 
means as close as the grain of oak. — Seel has been explained before. See 
page 75, note 35. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 123 

I am to pray you not to strain my speech 
To grosser issues nor to larger reach 
Than to suspicion. 

Oth. I will not. 

lago. Should you do so, my lord, 

My speech should fall into such vile success ^^ 
As my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend ; — 
My lord, I see you're moved. 

Oth. No, not much moved : 

I do not think but Desdemona's honest. 

lago. Long live she so ! and long live you to think so ! 

Oth. And yet, how nature erring from itself, — 

lago. Ay, there's the point ; as, — to be bold with you, — 
Not to affect many proposed matches 
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree. 
Whereto we see in all things nature tends ; — 
Foh ! one may smell, in such, a will most rank, 
Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural. 
But pardon me : I do not in position 
Distinctly speak of her ; though I may fear 
Her will, recoihng to her better judgment. 
May fall to match you with her country forms, 
And happily ^^ repent. 

Oth. Farewell, farewell : 

If more thou dost perceive, let me know more ; 
Set on thy wife t' observe : leave me, lago. 

23 Success here means co'nsequence or event. So in Sidney's Arcadia : 
" Straight my heart misgave me some evil success / " Often so. 

24 Where a trisyllable was wanted, the poets often used happily for haply 
that IS, perhaps. — The meaning of what precedes is, " Her ^\\\, falling back 
upon hex better judgment, rsxay go to comparing you with the forms of her 
countrymen." 



124 OTHELLO, ACT ill. 

lago. My lord, I take my leave. [^Goifig. 

0th. Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless 
Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds. 

lago. \_Refurning.'] My lord, I would I might entreat 
your Honour 
To scan this thing no further ; leave it to time : 
Although 'tis fit that Cassio have his place, — 
For, sure, he fills it up with great ability, — 
Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile. 
You shall by that perceive him and his means : ^^ 
Note if your lady strain his entertainment '-^^ 
With any strong or vehement importunity ; 
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time 
Let me be thought too busy in my fears, — 
As worthy cause I have to fear I am, — 
And hold her free, I do beseech your Honour. 

Ofh. Fear not my government. 

lago. I once more take my leave. \_Exit, 

Oth. This fellow's of exceeding honesty. 
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, 
Of human dealings. ^^ If I do prove her haggard,^^ 
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, 

25 You shall discover whether he thinks his best means, his most powerful 
interest, is by the solicitation of your lady. 

26 Press his readmission to pay and office. 

27 So the passage is commonly printed, the explanation being, " He knows 
with a learned spirit all qualities of human dealings." But I suspect the 
true sense to be, " He knows all qualities with a spirit learned iii respect of 
human dealings." So ^/is often used. See Hamlet, page 125, note 2. 

28 Haggard is wild, unreclaimed ; commonly used of a hawk. So in Sir 
Thomas Browne's Religio Medici : " Thus I teach my haggard and unre- 
claimed reason to stoop to the lure of faith." A passage in The White Devil^ 
or Vittoria Corombona, 1612, shows that the term was sometimes applied to 
a wanton : " Is this your perch, you haggard? fiy to the stews." 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 125 

I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind, 
To prey at fortune. -^ Haply, for I am black, 
And have not those soft parts of conversation 
That chamberers ^^ have ; or, for I am declined 
Into the vale of years, — yet that's not much ; — 
She's gone ; I am abused ; and my relief 
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage. 
That w^e can call these delicate creatures ours. 
And not their appetites ! I had rather be a toad. 
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon, 
Than keep a corner in the thing I love 
For other's uses. Yet 'tis the plague of great ones ; 
Prerogatived are they less than the base ; 
'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death : 
Even then this forked plague is fated to us 
When we do quicken. ^^ Desdemona comes : 
If she be false, O, then Heaven mocks itself ! 
I'll not believe't. 

Re-enter Desdemona and Emilia. 

Des. How now, my dear Othello ! 

29 Jesses are short straps of leather tied about the foot of a hawk, by which 
she is held on the fist. " The falconers always let fly the hawk against the 
wind; ifsheflys with the wind behind her, she seldom returns. If there- 
fore a hawk was for any reason to be dismissed, she was let down the wind, 
and from that time shifted for herself and preyed at fortune." So in Dry- 
den's Annus Mirabilis : 

Have you not seen, when, whistled from the fist, 
Some falcon stoops at what her eye design'd. 
And, with her eagerness the quarry miss'd, 
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind. 

30 That is, men of intrigue. Chambering and wantonness are mentioned 
together by Saint Paul, Romans, xiii. 13. 

31 When we begin to Uve. The proper meaning of qinck. 



1 26 OTHELLO, ACT III, 

Your dinner, and the generous islanders 
By you invited, do attend your presence. ^^ 

Oth. I am to blame. 

Des. Why do you speak so faintly? 

Are you not well? 

Oth. I have a pain upon my forehead here. 

Des. Faith, that's with watching ; 'twill away again : 
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour 
It will be well. 

Oth. Your napkin ^^ is too little ; 

\^He puts the handkei'chief from him ; and she drops it. 
Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you. 

Des. I'm very sorry that you are not well. 

\_Exeimt Othello and Desdemona. 

Emil. I am glad I have found this napkin. 
This was her first remembrance from the Moor : 
My wayward husband hath a hundred "^ times 



32 Wait for or await your coming. See Twelfth Night, page 104, note 16. 

33 Napkin and handkerchief were used interchangeably. 

34 Hundred for an indefinite number ; still it shows that the unity of time 
is much less observed in this play than some have supposed. Thus far, 
indeed, only one night, since that of the marriage, has been expressly ac- 
counted for ; and this was the night when the nuptials were celebrated, and 
Cassio cashiered ; though several must have passed during the sea-voyage. 
From lago's soliloquy at the close of Act i., it is clear he had his plot even 
then so far matured, that he might often woo his wife to steal the handkerchief 
while at sea. Moreover, we may well enough suppose a considerable inter- 
val of time between the first and third scenes of the present Act; since 
Cassio may not have had the interview with Desdemona immediately after 
he engaged Emilia to solicit it for him. In truth, however, the reckoning 
of time all through follows the laws of poetry, and laughs at the chronolo- 
gists. Wilson (" Kit North ") observes, not more shrewdly than justly, that 
Shakespeare has two clocks ; one, of the understanding, another, of the 
imagination. The former goes by the measures of sense ; the latter, by the 
measure of ideas. If we insist on having the two clocks harmonize and 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 12/ 

Woo'd me to steal't ; but she so loves the token, — 

For he conjured her she should ever keep it, — 

That she reserves it evermore about her 

To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,^^ 

And give't I ago : 

What he will do with it Heaven knows, not I ; 

I nothing but to please his fantasy. 

Re-enter I ago. 

lago. How now ! what do you here alone ? 

Emil. Do not you chide ; I have a thing for you. 

lago. A thing for me ! It is a common thing — 

Emil. Ha ! 

lago. — to have a foolish wife. 

Emil. O, is that all? What will you give me now 
For that same handkerchief? 

lago. What handkerchief? 

EmiL What handkerchief! 
Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona ; 
That which so often you did bid me steal. 

lago. Hast stol'n it from her? 

Emil. No, faith ; she let it drop by negligence, 
And, to th' advantage,36 \^ being here, took't up. 

tally together, we shall run into manifold contradictions and absurdities. 
But the imagination has its own laws ; and in works of imagination, espe- 
cially in the Drama, those laws are paramount. Nevertheless, if rightly 
followed, as Shakespeare commonly follows them, they do not clash with 
the laws of sensation, but simply range beside or above them ; and will 
carry us smoothly along, unless we choose to stick in the others ; as people 
who know too much often do, 

35 Ta'en out is copied. Her first thought is to have a copy made for her 
husband, and restore the original to Desdemona ; but the sudden coming 
of lago, in a surly humour, makes her alter her resolution. 

36 That is, " I being here just at the nick of time, or pat upon the oppor- 
tunity" Advantage is so used repeatedly in this play. See page 76, note 41. 



128 OTHELLO, ACT ill. 

Look, here it is. 

lago. A good wench ; give it me. 

Emil. What will you do with't, that you've been so 
earnest 
To have me filch it? 

lago. Why, what's that to you? 

[^Snatching if, 

Emil. If t be not for some purpose of imp6rt, 
Give't me again : poor lady, she'll run mad 
When she shall lack it. 

lago. Be not acknown on't ; ^^ I have use for it. 
Go, leave me. — \_Exit Emilia. 

I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin. 
And let him find it. Trifles light as air 
Are to the jealous confirmations strong 
As proofs of Holy Writ : this may do something. 
The Moor already changes with my poison : 
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons. 
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste, 
But, with a little act upon the blood. 
Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so : 
Look, where he comes ! ^^ — Not poppy, nor mandragora,^^ 

3'^ " Do not acknowledge you have seen it." The word occurs in Har- 
rington's Life of Ariosto, 1607 : " Some say he was married to her privilie, 
but durst not be acknown of it." 

38 In " I did say so," lago refers to what he has just said, that dangerous 
conceptions or imaginations have in them an inflaming virus, which, by work- 
ing a little in the blood, sets it all on fire, and fills the mind with sleepless 
perturbation. Then, the moment his eye lights on Othello, he sees that his 
devilish insight of things was punctually prophetic of Othello's case ; that 
his words are exactly verified in the inflamed looks of his victim. 

39 The mandrake, which was often called mandragora, is highly soporific, 
and was formerly used when a powerful opiate was wanted. See Antony 
and Cleopatra, page 58, note i. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 29 

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou owedst yesterday. 

Re-enter Othello. 

0th. Ha ! ha ! false to me ? 

lago. Why, how now, general ! no more of that. 

0th. Avaunt ! be gone ! thou hast set me on the rack : 
I swear 'tis better to be much abused 
Than but to know't a little. 

lago. How now, my lord ! 

Oth. What sense had I of her stol'n hours? 
I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me ; 
I slept the next night well, was free and merry : 
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n. 
Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all. 

lago. I'm sorry to hear this. 

Oth. I had been happy. 

So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever 
Farewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content ! 
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars. 
That m.ake ambition virtue ! O, farewell ! ^^ 
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, 
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,^^ 

40 There is some resemblance between this speech and the following lines 
in Peele's " Farewell to the Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English 
Forces," 1589 : 

And let god Mars his trumpet make you mirth, 
The roarhig cannon, and the brazen trumpe, 
The angry-sou7iding drum, the "whistling fife. 
The shriekes of men, the princelie courser's ney. 

41 In mentioning ihafife joined to the druvi, Shakespeare, as usual, paints 
from life ; those instruments being used together in his age by the English 
soldiery. Theyf/^, however, was discontinued for many years, but at length 



1 30 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

The royal banner, and all quality, 
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! 
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats 
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, 
Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone ! 

lago. Is't possible, my lord ? 

Oth. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a wanton, 
Be sure of it ; give me the ocular proof ; 
Or, by the worth of man's eternal ^- soul, 
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog 
Than answer my waked wrath ! 

lago. Is't come to this? 

Oth, Make me to see't ; or, at the least, so prove it, 
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop 
To hang a doubt on ; or woe upon thy life ! 

lago. My noble lord, — 

Oth. If thou dost slander her, and torture me. 
Never pray more ; abandon all remorse ; ^^ 
On horror's head horrors accumulate ; 
Do deeds to make Heaven weep, all Earth amazed ; 
For nothing canst thou to damnation add 
Greater than that. 

revived by the British guards under the Duke of Cumberland, at Maastricht 
in 1747, and thence adopted into other English regiments. 

•*2 Eternal is repeatedly used by the Poet for immortal. — The next line, 
" Thou hadst been better have been born," is something of a puzzle in 
grammar, though clear enough in sense. 

^3 Remorse, in Shakespeare, usually means pity or compassion : here, as 
also again near the end of this scene, it stands, apparently, for conscience ; 
the sense of the passage being, " Cast off, spurn away the restraints and 
regards of conscience altogether, and plunge headlong into all sorts of 
lawless, remorseless, and inhuman atrocities." The sense oi pity, however, 
is included and interfused with the other. What an appalling disclosure 
the epeech is, of Othello's excruciating agony of mind ! 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I3I 

lago. O grace ! O Heaven forgive me ! 

Are you a man ? have you a soul or sense ? 
God b' wi' you ! take mine office. — O wretched fool, 
That livest to make thine honesty a vice ! — 

monstrous world ! Take note, take note, O world, 
To be direct and honest is not safe. — 

1 thank you for this profit ; and from hence 

I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence. 

Oth. Nay, stay : thou shouldst be honest. 

lago. I should be wise ; for honesty's a fool, 
And loses that it works for. 

Otli, By the world, 

I think my wife be honest, and think she is not ; 
I think that thou art just, and think thou art not : 
I'll have some proof: her name, that was as fresh 
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black 
As mine own face. If there be cords or knives. 
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams, 
I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied ! 

lago. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion : 
I do repent me that I put it to you. 
You would be satisfied ? 

Oth. Would ! nay, I will. 

lago. And may ; but how ? how satisfied, my lord ? 
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction? 
If imputation and strong circumstances ^^ — 
Which lead directly to the door of truth — 
Will give you satisfaction, you may have't. 

44 " Imputation and strong circumstances " is equivalent to " opinion or 
inference based upon strong circumstantial evidence." This use of and in 
coupling a principal and an auxiliary notion is quite frequent See Hamlet, 
page 50, note 22. 



132 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

0th. Give me a living reason "^^ she's disloyal. 

lago. I do not like the office : 
But, sith I'm enter'd in this cause so far, — 
Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love, — 
I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately ; 
And, being troubled with a raging tooth, 
I could not sleep. There are a kind of men 
So loose of soul, that in their sleeps will mutter 
Of their affairs : one of this kind is Cassio. 
In sleep I heard him say. Sweet Desde^iiona, 
Let tcs be wary, let us hide our loves ; and then 
Cried CtiJ^sedfate that gave thee to the Moor ! 

Oth. O monstrous ! monstrous ! 

lago. Nay, this was but his dream. 

Oth. But this denoted a foregone conclusion : ^^ 
'Tis a shrewd doubt, ''^ though it be but a dream. 

lago. And this may help to thicken other proofs 
That do demonstrate thinly, 

Oth. I'll tear her all to pieces. 

lago. Nay, but be wise : yet we see nothing done ; ^^ 
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this : 
Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief 
Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand ? 

45 " A living reason " is a reason drawn from life ; that is, founded on 
fact and experience, not on conjecture or surmise. 

46 CoftclusioTt is the old word for experiment. So that " a foregone con- 
clusion " is an antecedent experience. See Hamlet, page 166, note 36. 

47 A shrewd doubt is a well-aimed suspicion. Here, by a common figure 
of speech, the effect is put for the cause. This use of doubt occurs quite 
often. 

48 An oblique sarcasm, referring to Othello's demand for " ocular proof." 
lago is exulting in his intellectual mastery as shown in the success of his 
lies. Truth prevails by her own might; lies, by the skill of the liar: hence 
gaining his ends by falsehood is to lago just the sweetest thing in the world. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 33 

Oth. I gave her such a one ; 'twas my first gift. 

lago. I know not that : but such a handkerchief — 
I'm sure it was your wife's — did I to-day 
See Cassio wipe his beard with. 

Oth. If it be that, — 

lago. If it be that, or any that was hers, 
It speaks against her with the other proofs. 

Oth. O, that the slave had forty thousand Hves ! 
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge. 
Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, lago ; 
All my fond love thus do I blow to Heaven ; 
'Tis gone. — 

Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow Hell ! ^"^ 
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne 
To tyrannous hate ! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught, 
For 'tis of aspics' tongues ! ^^ 

lago. Yet be content. 

Oth. O, blood, blood, blood ! 

lago. Patience, I say ; your mind perhaps may change. 

Oth. Never, lago. Like to the Pontic sea, 
Whose icy current and compulsive course 
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on 
To the Propontic and the Hellspont ; ^^ 
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, 

49 Readers of Milton will be apt to remember, " He call'd so loud, that 
all the hollow deep of Hell resounded " ; and, " The universal host sent up 
a shout that tore Hell's concave." 

50 Fratight is but an old form oi freight. — Shakespeare has several allu- 
sions to the poisonous mouth of that ancient beast, the asp of Nile ; and the 
catastrophe of Antony and Cleopatra is made to turn on its deadly bite. 

51 Pliny's Natural History, Holland's translation, i6oi, may have furnished 
this illustration : "And the sea Pontus evermore floweth and runneth out 
into Propontis, but the sea never retireth backe again within Pontus." 



134 OTHELLO, ACT in. 

Shall ne*er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, 

Till that a capable ^'^ and wide revenge 

Swallow them up. — Now, by yond marble heaven. 

In the due reverence of a sacred vow \_Kneels. 

I here engage my words. 

lago. Do not rise yet. — \_Kneels. 

Witness, you ever-burning lights above. 
You elements that clip us round about, — 
Witness that here lago doth give up 
The execution ^3 of his wit, hands, heart. 
To wrong'd Othello's service ! Let him command, 
And to obey shall be in me remorse,^"* 
What bloody work soe'er. \They rise, 

0th. I greet thy love. 

Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous, 
And will upon the instant put thee to't : 
Within these three days let me hear thee say 
That Cassio's not alive. 

lago. My friend is dead ; 'tis done at your request ; 
But let her live. 

0th. Damn her, lewd minx ! O, damn her ! 

Come, go with me apart ; I will withdraw, 
To furnish me with some swift means of death 
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant. 

lago. I am your own for ever. \_Exeunt 

52 Capable is here used for capacious, comprehensive. So Nash, in his 
Pierce Pennilesse, 1592 : " Then belike, quoth I, you make this word Desman 
a capable name, of gods, of men, of devils." 

53 Execution for exercise, employ??ient, or executive power. 

54 Remorse for conscience, simply. lago has before said, " I hold it very 
stuff o' the conscience to do not contrived murder." So the meaning here 
is, " Let him command whatever bloody work he may, to perform it shall be 
with me a matter of conscience." This explanation is Mr. Joseph Crosby's. 
See Julius Ccesar, page 73, note 7, 



SCENE IV. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 35 

Scene IV. — Before the Castle, 
Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown. 

Des, Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies ? 

Clo. I dare not say he lies anywhere. 

Des. Why, man ? 

Clo. He's a soldier ; and for one to say a soldier lies, is 
stabbing. 

Des. Go to : where lodges he ? 

Clo. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I 
lie. 

Des, Can any thing be made of this ? 

Clo. I know not where he lodges ; and for me to devise a 
lodging, and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in 
mine own throat. 

Des. Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report ? 

Clo. I will catechize the world for him ; that is, make 
questions, and by them answer. 

Des. Seek him, bid him come hither : tell him I have 
moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well. 

Clo. To do this is within the compass of man's wit ; and 
therefore I will attempt the doing it. \_Exil. 

Des. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia? 

Emil. I know not,i madam. 

1 Objection has been made to the conduct of Emilia in this scene, as 
inconsistent with the spirit she afterwards shows. I can discover no such 
inconsistency. Want of principle and strength of attachment are often thus 
seen united. Emilia loves her mistress deeply ; but she has no moral re- 
pugnance to theft and falsehood, apprehends no fatal consequences from 
the Moor's passion, and has no soul to conceive the agony her mistress 
must suffer by the charge of infidelity : and it is but natural, that when the 
result comes she should be the more spirited for the very remembrance of 
her own guilty part in the process. 



136 OTHELLO, ACT III 

Des, Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse 
Full of crusadoes : ^ and, but my noble Moor 
Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness 
As jealous creatures are, it were enough 
To put him to ill thinking. 

Emil. Is he not jealous? 

Des. Who, he ? I think the Sun where he was born 
Drew all such humours from him. 

Emil. Look, here he comes. 

Des. I will not leave him now till Cassio 
Be call'd to him. — 

Enter Othello. 

How is't with you, my lord ? 

Oth. Well, my good lady. — \_Aside.'\ O, hardness to dis- 
semble ! — 
How do you, Desdemona? 

Des. Well, my good lord. 

0th. Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady. 

Des. It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow. 

Oth. This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart : 
Hot, hot, and moist ! this hand of yours requires 
A sequester ixom liberty, fasting and prayer, 
Much castigation, exercise devout ; 
For here's a young and sweating devil here. 
That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand, 
A frank one. 

Des. You may, indeed, say so ; 

2 It appears from Rider's Dictionary that there were three sorts of crusa- 
does; one with a long cross, one with a short cross, and the great crusado 
of Portugal. They were of gold, and differed in value from six shillings 
and eightpence to nine shillings. 



SCENE IV. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 137 

For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart. 

0th. A liberal hand : the hearts of old gave hands ; 
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.^ 

Des. I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise. 

0th. What promise, chuck? 

Des. I've sent to bid Cassio come speak with you. 

0th. I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me ; 
Lend me thy handkerchief. 

Des. Here my lord. 

0th. That which I gave you. 

Des. I have it not about me. 

0th. Not? 

Des. No, indeed, my lord. 

Oth. That is a fault. That handkerchief 
Did an Egyptian to my mother give ; 
She was a charmer,'* and could almost read 
The thoughts of people : she told her, while she kept it, 
'Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father 
Entirely to her love ; but, if she lost it, 
Or made a gift of it, my father's eye 
Should hold her loathed, and his spirits should hunt 
After new fancies : she, dying, gave it me ; 

3 This " new heraldry " seems to be an allusion to the bloody hand borne 
on the arms of the new order of baronets, created by James I. in i6ii. 
Malone quotes, in illustration of the text, the following from the Essays of 
Sir William Cornwallis, i6oi : " We of these later times, full of a nice curios- 
itie, mislike all the performances of our forefathers ; we say they 'were hon- 
est plaine men, but they want the capering wits of this ripe age. They had 
wont to give their hands and hearts together, but we think it a finer grace to 
looke asquint, our hand looking one way and our heart another!' 

4 A charmer is used for an enchanter in the Psalms. So in Perkin's Dis- 
course on Witchcraft, i6io : " By witches we understand not only those 
which kill and torment, but all charmers, jugglers, all wizards, commonly 
called wise men and wise women." 



138 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

And bid me, when my fate would have me wive, 
To give it her.^ I did so : and take heed on't ; 
Make it a darling like your precious eye ; 
To lose't or give't away were such perdition 
As nothing else could match. 

Des, Is't possible? 

0th. 'Tis true : there's magic in the web of it. 
A sibyl, that had number'd in the world 
The Sun to course two hundred compasses, 
In her prophetic fury sew'd the work ; 
The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk ; 
And it was dyed in mummy ^ which the skilful 
Conserved of maidens' hearts. 

Des. Indeed ! is't true ? 

0th. Most veritable ; therefore look to't well. 

Des. Then would to God that I had never seen't ! 

0th. Ha ! wherefore ? 

Des. Why do you speak so startingly and rash ? 

Oth. Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o' the way? 

Des. Heaven bless us ! 

Oth. Say you ? 

Des. It is not lost ; but what an if it were ? 

Oth. How! 

Des. I say, it is not lost. 

5 Her refers to the noun implied in wive. In the last scene of the play 
Othello speaks of the handkerchief as " an antique token my father gave my 
mother." This has been thought an oversight; Steevens regards it as a 
fresh proof of the Poet's art. "The first account," says he, " was purposely 
ostentatious, in order to alarm his wife the more. When he again mentions 
it, the truth was sufificient." 

6 The balsamic liquor running from mummies was formerly celebrated for 
its anti-epileptic virtues. It was much coveted by painters, as a transparent 
brown colour that threw a warmth into the shadows of a picture. 



SCENE IV. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 39 

0th. Fetch't, let me see't. 

Des. Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now. 
This is a trick to put me from my suit : 
Pray you, let Cassio be received again. 

0th. Fetch me the handkerchief : my mind misgives. 

Des. Come, come ; 
You'll never meet a more sufficient man. 

Oth. The handkerchief ! 

Des. I pray, talk me of Cassio. 

Oth. The handkerchief! 

Des. A man that all his time 

Hath founded his good fortunes on your love, 
Shared dangers with you, — 

Oth. The handkerchief! 

Des. In sooth, you are to blame. 

Oth. h.w2iy ! [^Exit. 

Emil. Is not this man jealous? 

Des. I ne'er saw this before. 
Sure, there's some wonder in this handkerchief: 
I'm most unhappy in the loss of it. 

Emil. 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man : 
They're all but stomachs, and we all but food ; 
They eat us hungerly, and, when they're full, 
They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my husband I 

Enter Cassio and Iago. 

lago. There is no other way ; 'tis she must do't : 
And, lo, the happiness ! ''' go, and imp6rtune her. 

Des. How now, good Cassio ! what's the news with you ? 
Cas. Madam, my former suit : I do beseech you 

7 Happiness, here, \?> good hap or lucky cha?ice ; referring to the timely and 
opportune meeting with Desdemona. 



140 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

That by your virtuous means I may again 
Exist, and be a member of his love 
Whom I with all the office of my heart 
Entirely honour : I would not be delay'd. 
If my offence be of such mortal kind 
That nor my service past, nor present sorrow, 
Nor purposed merit in futurity, 
Can ransom me into his love again. 
But to know so must be my benefit ; 
So shall I clothe me in a forced content, 
And shut myself up in some other course, 
To fortune's alms.^ 

Des. Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio ! 

My advocation is not now in tune ; 
My lord is not my lord ; nor should I know him. 
Were he in favour as in humour alter'd. 
So help me every spirit sanctified, 
As I have spoken for you all my best. 
And stood within the blank ^ of his displeasure 
For my free speech ! You must awhile be patient : 
What I can do I will ; and more I will 
Than for myself I dare : let that suffice you. 

lago. Is my lord angry? 

EmiL He went hence but now, 

And certainly in strange unquietness. 

lago. Can he be angry ? I have seen the cannon, 
When it hath blown his ranks into the air. 



8 Probably meaning, " content myself with, settle my mind upon, or 
bound my thoughts within, some other way and means of living, such as 
charitable fortune opens or offers to the needy." 

9 The blank is the white spot of a mark, at which the shots are aimed. 
So that to stand witJiin the blank is to stand directly before the aim. 



SCENE IV. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I4I 

And, like the Devil, from his very arm 
PufPd his own brother ; and can he be angry ? 
Something of moment, then : I will go meet him 
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry. 

Des. I pr'ythee, do so. — [Exit Iago. 

Something, sure, of State — 
Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd practice ^^ 
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him — 
Hath puddled his clear spirit ; ^^ and in such cases 
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things, 
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so ; 
For let our finger ache, and it indues 
Our other healthful members even to that sense 
Of pain : nay, we must think men 'are not gods. 
Nor of them look for such observancy ^^ 
As fits the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia, 
I w^as — unhandsome warrior as I am — 
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul ; 
But now I find I had suborn'd the witness. 
And he's indicted falsely. 

Emil. Pray Heaven it be State-matters, as you think. 
And no conception nor no jealous toy ^^ 
Concerning you. 

Des. Alas the day, I never gave him cause ! 

EmiL But jealous souls will not be answer'd so ; 

1" That is, some hidden plot, conspiracy, or machination. Such is often 
the meaning oi practice. See King Lear, page 202, note 23. 

11 Puddled with the exact meaning of our old Yankee word riled. 

12 Observancy, here, is watchful, tender, and devout attention or compli- 
ance. So in As You Like It, v. 2, where Silvius describes " what 'tis to love " : 
" It is to be all adoration, duty, and observance, all humbleness," &c. 

13 Toy for whim, fancy, or crotchet, such as are apt to haunt and fascinate 
suspicious heads. See King Richard III., page 48, note 13. 



142 OTHELLO, ACT III. 

They are not ever jealous for the cause, 

But jealous for they're jealous : 'tis a monster 

Begot upon itself, born on i^ itself. 

Des. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind ! 

Emil. Lady, amen ! 

Des. I will go seek him. — Cassio, walk hereabout : 
If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit. 
And seek t' effect it to my uttermost. 

Cas, I humbly thank your ladyship. 

\_Exeunt Desdemona and Emiua. 

Enter Bianca. 

Bian. Save you, friend Cassio ! 

Cas. What makes you from home ? ^^ 

How is it with you, my most fair Bianca? 
I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house. 

Bian. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio. 
What, keep a week away ? ^^ seven days and nights ? 
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours. 
More tedious than the dial eight score times ? 

weary reckoning ! 

Cas. Pardon me, Bianca : 

1 have this while with leaden thoughts been press *d ; 
But I shall, in a more continuate time,!"^ 

Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca, 



14 On where we should use of. Frequent. 

15 " What ar-e you doing away from home ? " See page 59, note 12. 

16 It would seem, by this, that seven days at least have elapsed since Cas- 
sio was cashiered ; perhaps much more, as the " leaden thoughts " may 
have been kept off for some time by the hopes built upon Desdemona's 
promise of intercession, and brought on again by the unexpected delay. 

1'^ ''Continuate time " is time uninterrupted. 



SCENE IV, THE MOOR OF VENICE. I43 

Take me this work out.^^ 

\_Giving her Desdemona's handkerchief. 

Bian. O Cassio, whence came this ? 

This is some token from a newer friend : 
To the felt absence now I feel a cause. 
Is't come to this ? Well, well. 

Cas. Go to, woman ! 

Throw your vile guesses in the Devil's teeth. 
From whence you have them. You are jealous now 
That this is from some mistress, some remembrance : 
No, in good troth, Bianca. 

Bian. Why, whose is it? 

Cas. I know not, sweet : I found it in my chamber. 
I like the work well : ere it be demanded, — 
As like enough it will, — I'd have it copied : 
Take it, and do't ; and leave me for this time. 

Bian. Leave you ! wherefore ? 

Cas. I do attend here on the general ; 
And think it no addition, nor my wish. 
To have him see me woman'd. 

Bian. Why, I pray you? 

Cas. Not that I love you not. 

Bian. But that you do not love me. 

I pray you, bring me ^^ on the way a little ; 
And say if I shall see you soon at '^^ night. 

Cas. 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you ; 

18 Copy this work in another handkerchief. So in Middleton's Women 
beware Women: " She intends to take out other works in a new sampler," 
Again in the preface to Holland's Pliny, 1601 : " Nicophanes gave his mind 
wholly to antique pictures, partly to exemplify and take out patterns." 

19 "Bring me " is attend or escort me ; go with me. Often so. 

20 Soon at is here equivalent to about. See Merchant, page 114, note I. 



144 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

For I attend here : but I'll see you soon. 

Bian. 'Tis very good ; I must be circumstanced.^^ \_Exeujtt. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Cyprus. Before the Castle. 
Enter Othello and Iago. 

lago. Will you think so ? ^ 

0th. Think so, lago ! 

Iago. What, to kiss in private? 

0th. An unauthorized kiss. 

Iago. It is a venial shp. 
But, if I give my wife a handkerchief, — 

Oth. What then? 

Iago. Why, then 'tis hers, my lord ; and, being hers. 
She may, I think, bestow't on any man. 

Oth. She is protectress of her honour too : 
May she give that? 

Iago. Her honour is an essence that's not seen ; 
They have it very oft that have it not. 
But, for the handkerchief, — 

Oth. By Heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it ! 
Thou said'st, — O, it comes o'er my memory, 

'^1 Probably meaning " I must yield or submit to circumstances." 
1 We must suppose that Iago has been applying cases of false comfort 
to Othello ; as that, though the parties had been even found kissing, still 
there might be nothing wrong between them. Such feigned apologies are, 
as he well knows, just the things to heighten the agony which he pretends 
to soothe. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 145 

As doth the raven o'er th' infected house,^ 
Boding to all, — he had my handkerchief. 

lago. Ay, what of that? 

Oth. That's not so good now. 

lago. What, 

If I had said I had seen him do you wrong? 
Or heard him say, — as knaves be such abroad, 
Who having, by their own importunate suit, 
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress. 
Convinced or supplied them,^ cannot choose 
But they must blab — 

Oth. Hath he said any thing? 

lago. He hath, my lord ; but, be you well assured. 
No more than he'll unswear. 

Oth. Handkerchief — confessions — handkerchief ! — To 
confess, and be hang'd for his labour ; — first, to be hang'd, 
and then to confess. — I tremble at it. Nature would not 
invest herself in such shadowing passion without some in- 
struction.^ It is not words that shake me thus. — Pish ! 

2 The raven was thought to be an ill-boding bird, and as such to haunt 
houses infected with the plague. See Macbeth, page 68, note 5. 

3 Having either conquered her reluctance or complied with her wish. 
The proper meaning of convince is conquer or overcome. 

4 This passage is exceedingly obscure, and has called forth, as well it 
might, a good deal of explanatory comment. It is to be noted that Othello 
is here in the first stages of the apoplectic fit which presently follows. The 
fit begins with a strange sensation, coming he knows not how or whence ; 
such a sensation as he lias never had before. He adds, " It is not words 
that shake me thus " ; meaning, apparently, that the feeling he now has 
cannot be the effect of any audible or conscious communication, but must 
spring from depths in his being which consciousness cannot reach. Of 
the explanations that have been offered, I therefore, on the whole, prefer 
Pleath's, which is in substance as follows : Othello feels all his faculties 
suddenly failing him, and a cloudy darkness stealing fast upon him. This 
suggests to him that his very nature, at her inmost seats where conscious- 



146 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

noses, ears, and lips. — Is't possible ? — Confess — handker- 
chief ! — O devil ! ^ [Falls in a trance. 

lago. Work on, 
My medicine, work ! Thus credulous fools are caught ; 
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus. 
All guiltless, meet reproach. — What, ho ! my lord ! 
My lord, I say ! Othello ! — 

Enter Cassio. 

How now, Cassio ! 

Cas. What's the matter? 

lago. My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy : 
This is his second fit ; he had one yesterday. 

Cas. Rub him about the temples. 

lago. No, forbear; 

The lethargy must have his quiet course : 
If not, he foams at mouth, and by-and-by 
Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs : 
Do you withdraw yourself a little while ; 

ness cannot penetrate, must have been visited by some secret, mysterious 
touch, some preternatural assurance of the truth and reality of that which 
so oppresses him ; otherwise she (his nature) could not share so deeply in 
his present agony, and thus be made to invest herself with the horrid dark- 
ness which is now overwhelming him, — It appears that apoplexy and epilepsy 
and their derivatives were sometimes used indiscriminately. lago says, a 
little after, that Othello had a fit " yesterday " ; but this is no doubt one of 
lago's lies. So, in 2 King Henry the Fourth, iv. 4, it is said of the King, 
" This apoplex will certain be his end." The disease was epilepsy. 

5 " The starts," says Warburton, " and broken reflections in this speech 
liave something in them very terrible, and show the mind of the speaker to 
be in inexpressible agonies." — The trance is thus justified by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds: "Othello, in broken sentences and single words, all of which 
have a reference to the cause of his jealousy, shows that all the proofs are 
present at once to his mind, which so overpower it that he falls into a trance, 
— the natural consequence. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 14/ 

He will recover straight : when he is gone, 

I would on great occasion speak with you. — [Exit Cassio. 

How is it, general ? have you not hurt your head ? 

0th. Dost thou mock me ? 

lago. I mock you ! no, by Heaven. 

Would you would bear your fortune like a man ! 

0th. A horned man's a monster and a beast. 

lago. There's many a beast, then, in a populous city, 
And many a civil monster. 

Oth. Did he confess it ? 

lago. Good sir, be a man ; 

Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked 
May draw with you. 

Oth. O, thou art wise ; 'tis certain. 

lago. Stand you awhile apart ; 

Confine yourself but in a patient list.^ 
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief, — 
A passion most unfitting such a man, — 
Cassio came hither : I shifted him away, 
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy ; 
Bade him anon return, and here speak with me ; 
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself, 
And mark the fleers, tlie gibes, and notable scorns, 
That dwell in every region of his face ; 
For I will make him tell the tale anew, 
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when 
He hath, and is again to meet your wife i 
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience ; 
Or I shall say you're all-in-all one spleen,"^ 

6 " A patient list " is odd language, but means the bounds oi patience. For 
this use of list, see Twelfth Night, page 85, note 14. 

■^ Equivalent to all made up of spleen. The spleen appears to have been 



148 OTHELLO, ACT^IV. 

And nothing of a man. 

0th. Dost thou hear, lago? 

I will be found most cunning in my patience ; 
But — dost thou hear? — most bloody. 

lago. That's not amiss ; 

But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw ? — 

[Othello retires. 
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca. 
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain 
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes. 
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad ; 
And his unbookish jealousy must construe^ 
Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behaviour, 
Quite in the wrong. — 

Re-enter Cassio. 

How do you now, lieutenant? 

Cas. The worser that you give me the addition 
Whose want even kills me. 

lago. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't. 
\_Speaking lower.'] Now, if this suit lay in Bianca's power, 
How quickly should you speed ! 

Cas. Alas, poor caitiff ! 

Oth. [^Aside.'] Look, how he laughs already ! 

lago. I never knew a woman love man so. 

Cas. Alas, poor rogue ! I think, i'faith, she loves me. 

Oth. [^Aside.] Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it 
out. 

regarded as the special seat of the most vehement and tempestuous passions ; 
those which in their movements resemble the action of lightning and gun- 
powder. See A Midsummer, page 29, note 17. 

8 Probably, as Walker says, unbookish is to be taken with construe. " So 
that his jealousy must translate ignorantly" &c. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 49 

lago. Do you hear, Cassio? 

Oth. \_Aside.'\ Now he iinp6rtunes him 

To tell it o'er : — go to ; well said, well said. 

lago. She gives it out that you shall marry her ; 
Do you intend it ? 

Cas. Ha, ha, ha ! 

Oth. \^Aside,'\ Do you triumph, Roman ?9 do you tri- 
umph? 

Cas. I marry her ! Pr'ythee, beai some charity to my 
wit ; do not think it so unwholesome. ^^ Ha, ha, ha ! 

Oth. \^Aside.'\ So, so, so, so : they laugh that win. 

lago. Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her. 

Cas. Pr'ythee, say true. 

lago. I am a very villain else. 

Oth. \Aside.'\ Have you scored me? i^ Well. 

Cas. This is the monkey's own giving out : she is per- 
suaded I will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, 
not out of my promise. 

Oth. '\_Aside^ lago beckons me ; now he begins the story. 

Cas. She was here even now ; she haunts me in every 



9 The Romans were a triumphant people, and were also fond of triumphs. 
So Cassio's seeming exultation probably suggests the name, and Othello calls 
him Roman ironically. 

'^^ Unwholesome in the sense of unhealthy or diseased. Repeatedly so. 

11 I am not clear as to the meaning of this. To score was to cut notches 
in a stick, and accounts were formerly kept by scoring the items thus in 
what were called tally-sticks. In AlVs Well, iv. 3, we have the line, " After 
he scores, he never pays the score " ; and the context there shows the mean- 
ing to be, that when he has sworn a woman into granting his wish he never 
keeps his oaths ; or what the Poet elsewhere calls " beguiling virgins with 
the broken seals of perjury," So, in the text, the meaning may be, " Have 
you run up an account against me, which I must pay? very well, I'll see 
you paid." Or it may be, " Have you squared the account with me for 
cashiering you ? " 



1 50 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

place, I was, the other day, talking on the sea- bank with 
certain Venetians ; and thither comes the bauble, and falls 
me thus about my neck ; — 

0th. \_Aside.'\ Crying O dear Cassio ! as it were : his 
gesture imports it. 

Cas. — so hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me ; so hales 
and pulls me : ha, ha, ha ! 

0th. ]^Aside7\ Now he tells how she pluck'd him to my 
chamber. — O, I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I 
shall throw it to. 

Cas. Well, I must leave her company. 

lago. Before me ! look, where she comes. 

Cas. 'Tis such another fitchew ! i'^ marry, a perfumed 
one. — •■ 

Enter Bmnca. 

What do you mean by this haunting of me ? 

Bian. Let the Devil and his dam haunt you ! What did 
you mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now? 
I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the work ? A 
likely piece of work, that you should find it in your chamber, 
and not know who left it there ! This is some minx's token, 
and I must take out the work ? There ; give it your hobby- 
horse : wheresoever you had it, I'll take out no work on't. 

Cas. How now, my sweet Bianca ! how now ! how now ! 

0th. \^Aside.'\ By Heaven, that should be my handker- 
chief ! 

Bian. An you'll come to supper to-night, you may ; an 
you will not, come when you are next prepared for. \Exit. 

lago. After her, after her. 

12 Fitchew is an old name of the polecat. — Such another was a common 
phrase, meaning/wj-/ like, or nearly that. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I 5 I 

Cas. Faith, I must ; she'll rail in the street else. 

lago. Will you sup there ? 

Cas, Yes, I intend so. 

lago. Well, I may chance to see you ; for I would very 
fain speak with you. 

Cas. Pr'ythee, come ; will you ? 

lago. Go to ; say no more. \_Exit Cassio. 

0th. [ Coming forward. '\ How shall I murder him, lago ? 

lago. Did you perceive how he laugh'd at his vice ? 

0th. O lago ! 

lago. And did you see the handkerchief? 

0th. Was that mine ? 

lago. Yours, by this hand : and to see how he prizes the 
foolish woman your wife ! she gave it to him, and he hath 
given it his mistress. 

0th. I would have him nine years a-killing. A fine wo- 
man ! a fair woman ! a sweet woman ! 

lago. Nay, you must forget that. 

Oth. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damn'd to-night ; 
for she shall not live : no, my heart is turn'd to stone ; I 
strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a 
sweeter creature : she might lie by an emperor's side, and 
command him tasks. 

lago. Nay, that's not your way. 

Oth. Hang her ! I do but say what she is : so delicate 
with her needle ! an admirable musician : O, she will sing 
the savageness out of a bear ! of so high and plenteous wit 
and invention ! 

lago. She's the worse for all this. 

Oth. O, a thousand-thousand times. And then, of so 
gentle a condition ! ^^ 

13 Condition, again, for temper or disposition. See page 91, note 29. 



152 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

lago. Ay, too gentle. 

Oth. Nay, that's certain : but yet the pity of it, lago ! 
O lago, the pity of it, lago ! 

lago. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent 
to offend ; ^^ for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody. 

Oth. I will chop her into messes ! Get me some poison, 
lago ; this night ; — I'll not expostulate with her, lest her 
beauty unprovide my mind again ; — this night, lago. 

lago. Do it not with poison ; strangle her in her bed. 

Oth. Good, good ! the justice of it pleases ; very good ! 

lago. And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker : 1^ you 
shall hear more by midnight. 

Oth. Excellent-good ! \_A inunpet within?^ What trum- 
pet is that same ? 

lago. Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico 
Come from the Duke ; and, see, your wife is with him. 

Enter Lodovico, Desdemona, and Attendants. 

Lod. God save the worthy general ! 

Oth. With all my heart, sir. 

Lod. The Duke and Senators of Venice greet you. 

\^Gives him a packet. 
Oth. I kiss the instrument of their pleasures. 

\^Opens the packet, and reads. 
Des. And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico ? 
lago. I am very glad to see you, signior : welcome to 
Cyprus. 

Lod. I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio ? 



14 A patent is an open letter conferring a special right or privilege ; as in 
the common ^hrsise, patent-right. See Richard II., page 76, note 26. 

15 " I will tindertake, or take upon me, your cause against him." The word 
was used of those who volunteer in other men's quarrels. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 153 

lago. Lives, sir. 

Des. Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord 
An unkind breach ; but you shall mak6 all well. 

Oth. Are you sure of that? 

Des. My lord ? 

Oth. [Reads.] This fail you not to do, as you will — 

Lod. He did not call ; he's busy in the paper. 
Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio ? 

Des. A most unhappy one : I would do much 
T' atone them,!^ for the love I bear to Cassio. 

Oth. Fire and brimstone ! 

Des. My lord ? 

Oth. Are you wise? 

Des. What, is he angry? 

Lod. May be the letter moved him ; 

For, as I think, they do command him home, 
Deputing Cassio in his government. 

Des. Trust me, I am glad on't. 

Oth. Indeed ! 

Des. My lord ? 

Oth. I am glad to see you mad. 

Des. Why, sweet Othello ! 

Oth. ^Striking her.'] Devil ! 

Des. I have not deserved this. 

Lod. My lord, this would not be believed in Venice, 
Though I should swear I saw't : 'tis very much : 
Make her amends ; she weeps. 

Oth. O devil, devil ! 

If that the earth could teem with woman's tears, 
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.!^ — 

16 Atone in its old sense of reconcile or at-one. Repeatedly so. 

1"^ Here, as often, /alls is a transitive verb, equivalent to lets fall. — By the 



154 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

Out of my sight ! 

Des. I will not stay t' offend you. \_Going. 

Lod. Truly, an obedient lady : 
I do beseech your lordship, call her back. 

Oth. Mistress ! 

Des. My lord ? 

Oth. What would you with her, sir? 

Lod. Who, I, my lord ? 

Otli. Ay ; you did wish that I would make her turn. 
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on, 
And turn again ; and she can weep, sir, weep ; 
And she's obedient, as you say, obedient. 
Very obedient. — Proceed you in your tears. — 
Concerning this, sir, — O well-painted i^ passion ! — ■ 
I am commanded home. — Get you away ; 
I'll send for you anon. — Sir, I obey the mandate. 
And will return to Venice. — Hence, avaunt ! — 

\_Exit Desdemona. 
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, to-night 
I do entreat that we may sup together : 
You're welcome, sir, to Cyprus. — Goats and monkeys ! 

\^Exit. 

Lod. Is this the noble Moor whom our full Senate 



doctrine of equivocal generation new animals were supposed producible by 
new combinations of matter. Shakespeare here alludes to the fabulous 
accounts which make the crocodile the most deceitful of animals. " It is 
written that he will weep over a man's head when he hath devoured the 
body, and will then eat up the head too." Wherefore in Latin there is a 
proverb, " Crocodili lachrymae, crocodiles teares, to signifie such teares as 
are feigned, and spent only with intent to deceive or do harm." — BULLO- 
KAR's Expositor, 1616. 

18 Painted for counterfeited or simulated. Conversely, we have, else- 
where, counterfeit for picture, or what is painted. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I55 

Call all-in-all sufficient ? Is this the nature 
Whom passion could not shake ? whose solid virtue 
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance, 
Could neither graze nor pierce ? 

lago. He is much changed. 

Lod. Are his wits safe ? is he not light of brain ? 

lago. He's that he is : I may not breathe my censure. 
What he might be, — if what he might he is not, — 
I would to Heaven he were ! 

Lod. What, strike his wife ! 

lago. Faith, that was not so well ; yet would I knew 
That stroke would prove the worst ! 

Lod. Is it his use? 

Or did the letters work upon his blood, 
And new-create this fault ? 

Lago. Alas, alas ! 

It is not honesty ^^ in me to speak 
What I have seen and known. You shall observe him ; 
And his own courses will denote him so. 
That I may save my speech : do but go after, 
And mark how he continues. 

Lod. I'm sorry that I am deceived in him. \_ExeunU 

Scene II. — A Room in the Castle, 

Enter Othello and Emilia. 

0th. You have seen nothing, then? 

Emil. Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect. 

0th. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together. 

19 Honesty, as also honest, was sometimes used in the exact sense of hon- 
ourable. And such is clearly the meaning here. See, also, v. 2, note 17, of 
this play, for instance of a like usage. 



156 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

Ertiil. But then I saw no harm, and then I heard 
Each syllable that breath made up between them. 

0th. What, did they never whisper? 

Emil. Never, my lord. 

Oth. Nor send you out o' the way? 

Emil. Never. 

Oth. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing ? 

Emil. Never, my lord. 

Oth. That's strange. 

Emil. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest, 
Lay down my soul at stake : if you think other. 
Remove your thought ; it doth abuse your bosom. 
If any wretch have put this in your head. 
Let Heaven requite it with the serpent's curse ! 
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true. 
There's no man happy ; the purest of their wives 
Is foul as slander. 

Oth. Bid her come hither ; go. — \^Exit Emilia. 

She says enough ; yet she's a simple wench 
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle wanton, 
A closet-lock-and-key of villainous secrets : 
And yet she'll kneel and pray ; I've seen her do't. 

Enter Desdemona ivith Emilia. 

Des. My lord, what is your will ? 

Oth. Pr2,y, chuck, come hithei, 

Des. What is your pleasure ? 

Oth. Let me see your eyes ; 

Look in my face. 

Des. What horrible fancy's this? 

Oth. [7<? Emilia.] Some of your function, mistress ; shut 
the door ; 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 157 

Cough, or cry hem, if anybody come : 

Your mystery, your mystery ; nay, dispatch.^ \_Exit Emilia. 

Des. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import ? 
I understand a fury in your words. 
But not the words. 

0th. Why, what art thou? 

Des. Your wife, my lord ; your true 

And loyal wife. 

0th. Come, swear it, damn thyself; 

Lest, being like one of Heaven, the devils themselves 
Should fear to seize thee : therefore be double-damn 'd ; 
Swear thou art honest.^ 

Des. Heaven doth truly know it. 

0th. Heaven truly knows that thou art false as Hell. 

Des. To whom, my lord ? with whom ? how am I false ? 

Oth. Ah, Desdemon ! away ! away ! away ! 

Des. Alas the heavy day ! Why do you weep ? 
Am I the motive ^ of these tears, my lord ? 
If haply you my father do suspect 
An instrument of this your calling back. 
Lay not your blame on me : if you have lost him, 
Why, I have lost him too. 

Oth. Had it pleased Heaven 

To try me with affliction ; had He rain'd 
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head j 
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips ; 

1 As in mere wantonness of self-torture, Othello here fondles the most 
agonizing conceptions, and seeks a morbid relief in thinking of Emilia as 
doing the ofifice or mystery of a procuress. A master-stroke of delineation. 

2 That is, by adding the crime of perjury to that of adultery: "Accumu- 
late sin upon sin, lest, being like an angel, you so strike the fiends with awe, 
that they will not dare to touch you." 

3 Shakespeare uses motive repeatedly in the sense of cause or mover. 



158 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes ; 

I should have found in some place of my soul 

A drop of patience : but, alas, to make me 

A fixed figure for the time of scorn 

To point his slow unmoving finger at ! ^ 

Yet could I bear that too ; well, very well : 

But there, where I have garner'd up my heart. 

Where either I must live, or bear no Hfe, — 

The fountain from the which my current runs. 

Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence ! 

Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads 

To knot and gender in ! — turn thy complexion there, 

Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin, 

Ay, there, look grim as Hell ! 

£>^s. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest. 

0//i. O, ay ; as summer flies are in the shambles, 
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed. 
Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet, 
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born ! 

Des. Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed ? 

Of/i. Was this fair paper, this most goodly book, 
Made to write wanton on ? What committed ! 
I should make very forges of my cheeks, 
That would to cinders burn up modesty, 
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed ! 

4 Much has been written upon this celebrated passage, which has been 
thought to be very obscure, if not absurdly at odds with itself; but it seems 
to me all right. " Tlie time of scorn " means, I think, the age of scorn, that 
is, the whole period during Vv'hich scorn may be said to live. The " fixed 
figure" is simply the speaker himself. As to "slow unmoving," the sense 
of it can be better felt than expressed : we can see the sneer darting from 
the inexorable finger, ever slowly moving with the object, never moving 
from it. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 59 

Heaven stops the nose at it, and the Moon winks ; 
The vulgar wind, that kisses all it meets. 
Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth, 
And will not hear it. What committed ! 
Impudent wanton ! 

Des. By Heaven, you do me wrong. 

0th. Are not you a wanton? 

Des. No, as I am a Christian : 

If to preserve this vessel for my lord, 
Be not to be a wanton, I am none. 

0th. Is't possible ? 

Des. O, Heaven forgive us ! 

0th. I cry you mercy, ^ then : 

I took you for that cunning trull of Venice 
That married with Othello. — You, mistress. 
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,^ 
And keep the gate of Hell ! 

Re-enter Emilia. 

You, you, ay, you ! 
We've done our talk \ there's money for your pains : '^ 
I pray you, turn the key, and keep our counsel. \_Exit, 

5 " I cry you mercy " is an old phrase for " I ask your pardon." 

6 The office opposed to Saint Peter ; alluding, evidently, to " the power of 
the keys," which was given to the Apostles generally, and especially to Saint 
Peter as representing them ; so that the opposition is between Emilia as 
keeper of the gate of Hell, and Saint Peter as keeper of the gate of Heaven. 
The sense, therefore, requires that the special emphasis, if there be any, 
should be laid on opposite. 

7 Othello, who in his relations towards women is one of the most delicate 
and sensitive of men, in the bitterness of his soul pays his wife's own maid 
as he leaves the former's bed-chamber ; not either to reward or to offend 
Emilia, but that he may torment his own soul by carrying out his supposi- 
tion to its most revolting consequences. — White. 



l6o OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

Emil. Alas, what does this gentleman conceive? 
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady? 

Des. Faith, half asleep. 

Emil. Good madam, what's the matter with my lord ? 

Des. With who ? 

Emil. Why, with my lord, madam. 

Des. Who is thy lord ? 

Emil. He that is yours, sweet lady. 

Des. I have none : do not talk to me, Emilia ; 
I cannot weep ; nor answer have I none, 
But what should go by water.^ Pr'ythee, to-night 
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets : remember ; 
And call thy husband hither. 

Emil. Here's a change indeed ! \^Exit. 

Des. 'Tis meet I sliould be used so, very meet. 
How have I been behaved, that he might stick 
The small'st opinion on my great'st abuse ? ^ 

Re-en fe?' Emilia with I ago. 

lago. What is your pleasure, madam? How is't with you? 

Des. I cannou tell. I'hose that do teach young babes 
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks : 
He might have chid me so ; for, in good faith, 
I am a child to chiding. 

lago. What's the matter, lady? 

E7nil. Alas, lago, my lord hath so defamed her, 

^ Go by water means, of course, be expressed by tears. Surely a conceit 
quite out of place. Laertes, in Hafnlef, iv. 4, vents a similar one on learn- 
ing that his sister is drowned : " Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, 
and therefore I forbid my tears." 

9 A very harsh and awkward expression ; but meaning, " What have I 
been doing, that upon my worst act he should fasten the slightest imputa- 
tion of crime ? " , 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. l6l 

Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her, 
As true hearts cannot bear : a beggar in his drink 
Could not have laid such terms upon his callet.i^ 

lago. Why did he so? 

Des. I do not know. 

lago. Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day I 

Emil. Hath she forsook so many noble matches, 
Her father, and her country, and her friends, 
To be thus wrong'd ? would it not make one weep ? 

Des, It is my wretched fortune. 

lago. Beshrew him for't ! 

How comes this trick upon him ? 

Des. Nay, Heaven doth know. 

Emil. I will be hang'd, if some eternal ^^ villain, 
Some busy and insinuating rogue, 
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office. 
Have not devised this slander ; I'll be hang'd else. 

lago. Fie, there's no such man ; 'tis impossible. 

Des. If any such there be, Heaven pardon him ! 

Emil. A halter pardon him ! and Hell gnaw his bones ! 
The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave, 
Some base notorious ^^ knave, some scurvy fellow. — 
O Heaven, that such companions ^^ Thou'dst unfold, 
And put in every honest hand a whip 
To lash the rascals naked through the world 
Even from the East to th' West ! 

10 Callet seems to have been used for vixen or scold. So in The Winter' & 
Tale : "A callet of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband, and 
now baits me." 

11 Eternal, apparently, for infernal. See yulius Ccssar, page 53, note 40. 

12 Notorious seems to be liere put for outrageous. Or it may mean de- 
serving to be noted, or branded with infamy. 

13 Companion was often used in scorn, just as fellow is now. 



1 62 . OTHELLO, ACT Iv. 

lago. Speak within door.i'* 

Emil. O, fie upon them ! Some such squire he was 
That turn'd your wit the seamy side without, 
And made you to suspect me with the Moor. 

lago. You are a fool ; go to. 

Des. Alas, lago. 

What shall I do to win my lord again ? 
Good fi-iend, go to him ; for, by this light of heaven, 
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel : 
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love. 
Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed ; 
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense, 
Delighted them in any other form ; 
Or that I do not yet, and ever did, 
And ever will — though he do shake me off 
To beggarly divorcement — love him dearly. 
Comfort forswear me ! Unkindness may do much ; 
And his unkindness may defeat my life. 
But never taint my love. 

lago. I pray you, be content ; 'tis but his humour . 
The business of the State does him offence, 
And he does chide with you.^^ 

Des. If 'twere no other, — 

lago. 'Tis but so, I warrant. \Trumpets within. 

Hark, how these instruments summon to supper ! 
The messengers of Venice stay the meat : 
Go in, and weep not ; all things shall be well. — 

\_Exeunt Desdemona aiid Emilia. 

14 Do not clamour so as to be heard beyond the house. 

15 This was the phraseology of the time. " To complaine, to make a 
quarrel, \o chide with one for a thing. Expostulare et queri." — Baret. 
So in the Poet's iilth Sonnet : " O, for my sake do you with fortune chide'"' 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 63 

Enter Roderigo. 

How now, Roderigo ! 

Rod. I do not find that thou deal'st justly with me. 

lago. What in the contrary? 

Rod. Every day thou daff'st ^^ me with some device, 
lago ; and rather, as it seems to me now, keep'st from me 
all conveniency than suppliest me with the least advantage 
of hope. I will, indeed, no longer endure it; nor am I 
yet persuaded to put up in peace what already I have fool- 
ishly suffer'd. 

lago. Will you hear me, Roderigo ? 

Rod. Faith, I have heard too much; for your words and 
performances are no kin together. 

lago. You charge me most unjustly. 

Rod. With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out 
of my means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver 
to Desdemona would half have corrupted a votarist : you 
have told me she hath received them, and return'd me ex- 
pectations and comforts of sudden respect and acquaint- 
ance ; but I find none. 

lago. Well ; go to ; very well. 

Rod. Very well ! go to ! I cannot go to, man ; nor 'tis not 
very well : nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin to find myself 
fopp'd 1^ in it. 

lago. Very well. 

16 Daff'is but another form of dof, and means to do off ox put off. Shake- 
speare uses the word in both forms. See Much Ado, page 63, note 9. 

17 The ■woxd.fopped does not occur again in Shakespeare, nor do I re- 
member to have met with it elsewhere. Probably it means made a fool of. 
Cowley, in his Czitter of Coleman Street, 1633, uses foppity for simpleton : 
"Why does this little foppttee laugh always? 'tis such a ninny, that ihe 
betrays her mistris, and thinks she does no hurt at all, no, not she." 



104 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

Rod. I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself 
known to Desdemona : if she will return me my jewels, I 
will give over my suit, and repent my unlawful solicitation ; 
if not, assure yourself I will seek satisfaction of you. 

lago. You have said now. 

Rod. Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment 
of doing. 

lago. Why, now I see there's mettle in thee ; and even 
from this instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever 
before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo : thou hast taken 
against me a most just exception ; but yet, I protest, I have 
dealt most directly in thy affair. 

Rod. It hath not appear'd. 

lago. I grant, indeed, it hath not appear'd ; and your 
suspicion is not without wit and judgment.!^ But, Roderigo, 
if thou hast that in thee indeed, which I have greater reason 
to believe now than ever, — I mean purpose, courage, and 
valour, — this night show it : if thou the next night following 
meet not Desdemona, take me from this world with treach- 
ery, and devise engines for my Kfe. 

Rod. Well, what is it? is it within reason and compass? 

lago. Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice 
to depute Cassio in Othello's place. 

Rod. Is that true? why, then Othello and Desdemona 
return again to Venice. 

lago. O, no : he goes into Mauritania, and takes away 
with him the fair Desdemona,'^ unless his abode be linger'd 

18 Shakespeare knew well, that most men like to be flattered on account 
of those endowments in which they are most deficient. Hence lago's com- 
pliment to this snipe on his sagacity and shrewdness. — Malone. 

19 This passage proves, so far as any thing said by lago may be believed, 
that Othello was not meant to be a Negro, as h^ been represented, both on 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 165 

here by some accident ; wherein none can be so determinate 
as the removing of Cassio. 

Rod. How do you mean, removing of him ? 

lago. Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place 3 
knocking out his brains. 

Rod, And that you would have me to do ? 

lago. Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. 
He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I go to 
him : he knows not yet of his honourable fortune. If you 
will watch his going thence, — which I will fashion to fall 
out between twelve and one, — you may take him at your 
pleasure : I will be near to second your attemjDt, and he shall 
fall between us. Come, stand not amazed at it,^^ but go 
along with me ; I will show you such a necessity in his death, 
that you shall think yourself bound to put it on him. It is 
now high supper-time, and the night grows to waste : about 
it. 

Rod, I will hear further reason for this. 

lago. And you shall be satisfied. \_Exeunt. 

Scene HI. — Another Room in the Castle. 

Enter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia, and Atten- 
dants. 

Lod, I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further. 
0th. O, pardon me ; 'twill do me good to walk. 

the stage and off, but a veritable Moor. His kindred, the Mauritanians, — 
from whose " men of royal siege he fetched his life and being," and among 
whom he was about to retire, — though apt enough to be confounded with 
the Negroes, were as different from them, externally, as brown is from black ; 
internally, in mind and character, the difference was far greater. 

20 Atnazed, in its primitive sense of being ifi a maze ; that is, bewildered or 
perplexed. Such is the more common meaning of the word in Shakespeare, 



l66 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 

Lod. Madam, good night ; I humbly thank your ladyship. 

Des. Your Honour is most welcome. 

0th. Will you walk, sir ? — O, Desdemona, — 

Des. My lord ? 

0th. Get you to bed on the instant ; I will be return'd 
forthwith : dismiss your attendant there ; look't be done. 

Des. I will, my lord. 

{^Exeunt Othello, Lodovico, and Attendants. 

Emit. How goes it now ? he looks gentler than he did.i 

Des. He says he will return incontinent : ^ 
He hath commanded me to go to bed, 
And bade me to dismiss you. 

Emit. Dismiss me ! 

Des. It was his bidding ; therefore, good Emilia, 
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu : 
We must not now displease him. 

Emit. I would you had never seen him ! 

Des. So would not I : my love doth so approve him, 
That even his stubborness, his checks, his frowns, — 
Pr'ythee, unpin me, — have grace and favour in them. 

Emit. I've laid those sheets you bade me on the bed, 

Des. All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds ! 
If I do die before thee, pr'ythee, shroud me 
In one of those same sheets. 

Emit. Come, come, you talk. 

Des. My mother had a maid call'd Barbara : 
She was in love ; and he she loved proved mad,^ 

1 One of those side intimations of the fluctuations of passion, which we 
seldom meet with but in Shakespeare. He has here put into half a line what 
some authors would have spun out into ten set speeches. — Hazlitt. 

2 Incontinent for incont'mently, and in its old sense of immediately or 
forthwith. See As You Like It, page 126, note 3. 

3 Probably meaning mad in the sense qI crazy ; perhaps, oi fickle. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 6/ 

And did forsake her : she had a song of zvillow ; 
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune, 
And she died singing it. That song to-night 
Will not go from my mind ; I've much to-do,"* 
Not to go hang my head all at one side, 
And sing it like poor Barbara. Pr'ythee, dispatch. 

Emil. Shall I go fetch your night-gown ? 

Des. No, unpin me here. 

This Lodovico is a proper^ man. 

Emil. A very handsome man. 

Des. He speaks well. 

Emil. I know a lady in Venice would have walk'd bare- 
foot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip. 

Des. [Sings.] 

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree. 

Sing all a green willow ; 
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee. 

Sing willow, willoiv, willow : 
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'' d her moans ; 

Sing willow, willow, willow ; 
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften' d the stones ; — 

Lay by these ; — 

[Sings.] Sing willow, willow, willow ; — 

Pr'ythee, hie thee ; he'll come anon : — 

[Sings.] Sing all a green willow must be my garland. /-'-' 
--J^^etnobody blame him ; his scorn I approve,-^ 

Nay, that's not next. Hark ! who is't that knocks? 

4 To-do, again, for ado. See page ii6, note 6. 

5 Proper, as usual, for handsome ox fine-looking. 



1 68 OTHELLO, ACT 

EfniL It's the wind. 
Des. [Sings.] 

/ calPd my love false love ; but what said he then ? 
Sing willow, zvillow, willow.^ — 
So, get thee gone ; good night. Mine eyes do itch ; 
Doth that bode weeping? 

Emil. 'Tis neither here nor there. 

Des. I've heard it said so. O, these men, these men ! 
Dost thou in conscience think, — tell me, Emilia, — • 
That there be women do abuse their husbands 
In such gross kind ? 

EniiL There be some such, no question. 



6 These lines are from an old ballad entitled " A Lover's Complaint, being 
forsaken of his Love." The ballad is given entire in Percy's Rellques. It 
is there the lament of a man : Shakespeare adapted it to the sex of " poor 
Barbara." I subjoin the stanzas from which he borrowed : 

A poore soule sat sighing under a sicamore tree; 

O willow, willow, willow ! 
With his hand on his bosom, his head on his knee : 

O willow, willow, willow ! 
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. 

The cold streams ran by him, his eyes wept apace; 

O willow, willow, willow ! 
The salt tears fell from him, which drowned his face: 

O willow, willow, willow ! 
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. 

The mute birds sat by him, made tame by his moneS ; 

O willow, willow, willow ! 
The salt tears fell from him, which soften'd the stones; 

O willow, willow, willow ! 
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. 

Let nobody blame me, her scornes I do prove ; 

O willow, willow, willow! 
She was borne to be faire ; I to die for her love : 

O willow, willow, willow! 
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. 



SCENE III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 69 

Des. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world ? 
Emil. Why, would not you ? 

Des. No, by this heavenly Hght ! 

Emil. The world's a huge thing : 

It is a great price for a small vice. 

Des. In troth, I think thou wouldst not. 

Emil. In troth, I think I should ; and undo't when I had 
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring,^ 
nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, 
nor any petty exhibition ; ^ but, for the whole world, — why, 
I should venture Purgatory for't. 

Des. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong for the 
whole world. 

Emil. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world ; and, 
having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own 
world, and you might quickly make it right. 
"725^^. I-do not-think there is any such woman. 

ErniL Yes, a dozen ; and as many to the vantage ^ as 
would store the world they play'd for. 

■^ A joint-ring was anciently a token of troth-plight between lovers, like 
the piece of broken gold in the Bride of Lammermoor. Dryden has a minute 
description of it in his Don Sebastian : 

A curious artist wrought them 
With joints so close as not to be perceived ; 
Yet they are both each other's counterpart : 
Her part had Juan inscribed, and his had Zayda, 
(You know these names are theirs,) and in the midst 
A heart divided in two halves was placed. 
Now, if the rivets of those rings enclosed 
Fit not each other, I have forged this lie; 
But, if they join, you must for ever part, 

® Exhibition, again, in its old sense of allowance. See page 73, note 27. 
9 To the vantage is the same as to boot, or into the bargain. 



1 70 OTHELLO, ACT V, 

But I do think it is their husbands' faults 

If wives do fall : say that they slack their duties, 

And pour our treasures into foreign laps ; 

Or else break out in peevish jealousies, 

Throwing restraint upon us ; or say they strike us. 

Or scant our former having 1^ in despite ; 

Why, we have galls ; and though we have some grace, 

Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know 

Their wives have sense ^^ like them : they see, and smell, 

And have their palates both for sweet and sour. 

As husbands have. What is it that they do 

When they change us for others ? Let them know, 

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. 

Des. Good night, good night : Heaven me such uses send, 
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend ! {Exeunt 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Cyprus. A Street, 

Enter Iago and Roderigo. 

lago. Here, stand behind this bulk ; 1 straight will he 
come : 
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home : 
Quick, quick ; fear nothing ; I'll be at thy elbow. 
It makes us, or it mars us ; think on that, 

10 Having for allotment or supply of money. 

11 Sense is here put for feeling or sensation ; like the Latin sensus. 

1 Bulk is a kind of stall, board, or counter outside of a house, on which 
articles were set for sale. So Florio : " Balcone, a bulke or stall of 2, shop." 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I /I 

And fix most firm thy resolution. 

Rod. Be near at hand ; I may miscarry in't. 

lago. Here, at thy hand : be bold, and take thy stand. 

\_Retires to a little distance. 

Rod. I have no great devotion to the deed ; 
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons : 
'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword ! he dies. 

[ Goes to his stand. 

lago. I've rubb'd this young quat^ almost to the sense, 
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio, 
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other, 
Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo, 
He calls me to a restitution large 
Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd^ from him, 
As gifts to Desdemona ; 
It must not be : if Cassio do remain, 
He hath a daily beauty in his life 
That makes me ugly ; and, besides, the Moor 
May unfold me to him ; there stand I in much peril. 
No, he must die : be't so ; I hear him coming. 

Enter Cassio. 

Rod. I know his gait, 'tis he. — Villain, thou diest ! 

[Rushes from his post, and makes a pass at Cassio. 
Cas. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed. 
But that my coat^ is better than thou know'st : 

2 A guat was, in provincial usage, a pimple, which by rubbing is made to 
smart. Roderigo is so called for the same reason that a low fellow is some- 
times called a scab. Rubbing to the se?tse is rubbing to the quick. 

3 Fooled him out of. To bob is to cheat or swittdle by craft of tongue. 

4 Cassio wears, underneath his visible dress, a coat or shirt of mail ; a 
hidden panoply made of finely-wrought links of steel, and sometimes 
called chain-armour. 



1/2 OTHELLO, ACT v. 

I will make proof of thine. \_Draws, and wounds Roderigo. 
Rod. O, I am slain ! 

[I AGO rushes from his post, cuts Cassio behind in 

the leg, and exit. 
Cas. I'm maim'd for ever ! — Help, ho ! murder ! murder ! 

\_Falls. 
Enter Othello, at some distance. 

Oth. The voice of Cassio : lago keeps his word. 

Rod. O, villain that I am ! 

Oth. It is even so. 

Cas. O, help, ho ! light ! a surgeon ! 

Oth. 'Tis he ! — O brave lago, honest and just. 
That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong ! 
Thou teachest me. — Minion, your dear lies dead, 
And your unblest fate hies : wanton, I come ! 
Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted. \^Exit, 

Enter Lodovico and Gratiano, at some distance. 

Cas. What, ho ! no watch? no passage?^ murder ! murder! 

Gra. 'Tis some mischance ; the cry is very direful. 

Cas. O, help ! 

Lod. Hark! 

Rod. O wretched villain ! 

Lod. Two or three groan. It is a heavy night. 
These may be counterfeits : let's think't unsafe 
To come in to the cry without more help. 

Rod. Nobody come ? then shall I bleed to death. 

Lod. Hark! 



5 Are there no passengers? none passing by f Passenger formerly means 
a passage-boat or vessel, and so would not have been understood in our 
sense. Of course London had many such boats plying across the Thames. 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 73 

Gra. Here one comes in his shirt, with hght and wea- 
pons. 

Re-enter Iago, with a light. 

lago. Who's there? whose noise is this that cries on 
murder?^ 

Lod. We do not know. 

Ia<ro. Did not you hear a cry? 

Cas. Here, here ! for Heaven's sake, help me ! 

jago. What's the matter? 

Gra. This is Othello's ancient, as I take it. 

Lod. The same indeed ; a very valiant fellow. 

lago. What are you here that cry so grievously? 

Cas. lago? O, I'm spoil'd, undone by villains ! 
Give me some help. 

lago. O me, lieutenant ! what villains have done this? 

Cas. I think that one of them is hereabout. 
And cannot make away. 

Ia<^o. O treacherous villains ! — 

What are you there? come in, and give some help. 

\To LoDOVico and Gratiano. 

Rod. O, help me here ! 

Cas. That's one of them. 

lago. . O murderous slave ! O villain ! 

\^Stads RoDERiGO. 

Rod. O damn'd lago ! O inhuman dog ! 

/ago. Kill men i' the dark ! — Where be these bloody 
thieves ? — 
How silent is this town ! — Ho ! murder ! murder ! — 
What may you be ? are you of good or evil ? 

6 That cries or exclaims against murder. To cry on and to cry out on 
are often so used by Shakespeare. See Hamlet, page no, note 49. 



174 OTHELLO, ACT V. 

Lod. As you shall prove us, praise us. 
lago. Signior Lodovico? 
Lod. He, sir. 

lago. I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains. 
Gra. Cassio ! 
lago. How is't, brother? 
Cas. My leg is cut in two. 

lago. Marry, Heaven forbid ! — 

Light, gentlemen ! I'll bind it with my shirt. 

Enter Bianca. 

Bian. What is the matter, ho? who is't that cried? 

lago. Who is't that cried ! 

Bian. O my dear Cassio ! my sweet Cassio ! O Cassio, 
Cassio, Cassio ! 

lago. O notable harlot ! — Cassio, may you suspect 
Who they should be that have thus mangled you ? 

Cas. No. 

Gra. I'm sorry to find you thus : I've been to seek you. 

lago. Lend me a garter. — So. — O, for a chair, 
To bear him easily hence ! 

Bian. Alas, he faints ! — O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio ! 

lago. Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash 
To be a party in this injury. — 
Patience awhile, good Cassio. — Come, come ; 
Lend me a Hght. — Know we this face or no ? 
Alas, my friend and my dear countryman 
Roderigo ! no ? — yes, sure ; O Heaven ! Roderigo ! 

Gra. What, of Venice? 

lago. Even he, sir : did you know him ? 

Gra. Know him ! ay. 

lago. Signior Gratiano? I cry you "gentle pardon ; 



SCENE I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1/5 

These b' .ody accidents must excuse my manners, 
That so neglected you. 

Gra. I'm glad to see you. 

lago. How do you, Cassio ? — O, a chair, a chair ! 

Gra, Roderigo ! 

lago. He, he, 'tis he ! — \_A chair brought in.'] O, that's 
well said ; ^ the chair. — 
Some good man bear him carefully from hence ; 
I'll fetch the general's surgeon. — [_To Bianca.] For you, 

mistress, 
Save you your labour. — He that lies slain here, Cassio, 
Was my dear friend : what malice was between you ? 

Cas. None in the world ; nor do I know the man. 

lago. \_To Bianca.] What, look you pale? — O, bear him 
out o' the air. — [Cassio and Roderigo are borne off. 
Stay you, good gentlemen. — Look you pale, mistress ? — 
Do you perceive the gastness ^ of her eye ? — 
Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon. — 
Behold her well ; I pray you, look upon her : 
Do you see, gentlemen ? nay, guiltiness will speak, 
Though tongues were out of use. 

Enter Emilia. 

EmiL 'Las, what's the matter ? what's the matter, husband ? 

lago. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark 
By Roderigo, and fellows that are 'scaped : 
He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead. 



■^ Well said was a common phrase for well done. 

8 Gastness iox ghastlin ess ; the deadly paleness of terror. The sense of 
ghost lies at the bottom of it ; as to he ghosted was a pretty frightful matter. 
The word does not occur again; but we have gasted in the same sense. 
See King Lear, page 98, note 8. 



iy6 OTHELLO, ACT V. 

£?m7. Alas, good gentleman \ alas, good Cassi ! 

/ago. This is the fruit of fooling. — Pr'ythee, Einilia, 
Go know of Cassio where he supp'd to-night. — 
[To BiANCA.] What, do you shake at that? 

Bi'an. He supp'd at my house ; but I therefore shake not. 

/ago. O, did he so ? I charge you, go with me. 

^w//. Fie, fie upon thee, harlot ! 

Bmn. I am no harlot ; but of life as honest 
As you that thus abuse me. 

^mi/. As I ! foh ! fie upon thee ! 

/ago. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd. — 
[To BiANCA.] Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale. — 
Emilia, run you to the citadel. 
And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd. — 
Will you go on afore? — [Aside.'] This is the night 
That either makes me or fordoes ^ me quite. [Exeunf. 



Scene II. — A Bedchamber in the Castle : Desdemona in 
bed asleep ; a light burning. 

Enter Othello. 

0th. It is the cause, it is the cause,^ my soul, — 



9 To fordo is to undo, to ruin, or destroy. See Lear, page 208, note 31. 

1 Othello means that Desdemona's crime is the sole motive or reason 
that impels him to the present act ; that in this alone he has a justifying 
cause, a " compelling occasion," for what he is about to do ; so that he 
cannot justly lie under the reproach of having acted from any subjective or 
self-generated animus of revengeful jealousy. Webster has a like use of 
caiise in the peroration of his great speech in reply to Calhoun, Feb. 16, 
1833 : " The cause, then. Sir, the cause ! Let the world know the cause 
which has thus induced one State of the Union to bid defiance to the power 
of the whole," &c. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 7/ 

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars ! ^ — 

It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood ; 

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, 

And smooth as monumental alabaster. 

Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. 

Put out the light, — and then put out thy light. — 

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 

I can again thy former light restore, 

Should I repent me ; — but, once put out thy hght, 

Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling Nature, 

I know not where is that Promethean heat 

That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose, 

I cannot give it vital growth again. 

It needs must wither : I'll smell it on the tree. — 

\_Kissing her. 
O balmy breath, that does almost persuade 
Justice to break her sword ! One more, one more : 
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee. 
And love thee after. One more, and that's the last : 
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep. 
But they are cruel tears : this sorrow's heavenly ; 
It strikes where it doth love.^ She wakes. 

2 Steevens urges that the Poet had no classical authority for " chaste stars." 
But, in classical poetry, the Moon is Diana, the goddess of chastity, and the 
stars are the train of virgins attending on her. And, if it were not so, 
Shakespeare had the authority of Nature, and so has made the phrase 
classical. The epithet chaste thus applied most aptly suggests the nature of 
the cause which the purity of the stars forbids to be named in their presence. 
No classical authority ! 

3 The tears are cruel, because, while heart-wringing pity is streaming from 
the eyes, an overmastering strain of duty is forcing him to what is, objectively, 
an act of cruelty. And the very loveliness of the victim only works to in- 
tensify his purpose, lest love should usurp the crown that belongs to a higher 
passion, — a passion, too, that must wear the crown, else love itself will fall 



I yS OTHELLO, ACT V. 

Des. Who's there? Othello? 

Olh. Ay, Desdemona. 

Des. Will you come to bed, my lord ? 

Ofh. Have you pray'd to-night, Desdemona? 

Des. Ay, my lord. 

Ofh. If you bethink yourself of any crime 
Unreconciled as yet to Heaven and grace. 
Solicit for it straight. 

Des. Alack, my lord, what may you mean by that ? 

0th. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by : 
I would not kill thy unprepared spirit ; 
No, — Heaven forfend ! — I would not kill thy soul. 

Des. Talk you of killing ? 

Olh. Ay, I do. 

Des. Then Heaven have mercy on me ! 

0th. Amen, with all my heart ! 

Des. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me. 

Oth. Hum ! 

Des. And yet I fear you ; for you're fatal then 
When your eyes roll so : why I should fear I know not, 
Since guiltiness I know not ; but yet I feel I fear. 

Oth. Think on thy sins. 

Des. They're loves I bear to you. 

Oth. Ay, and for that thou diest. 

Des. That death's unnatural that kills for loving. 
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip ? 
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame : 

from its propriety. Pathos carried to the most soul-searching height ! And 
the " sorrow is heavenly," because it is baptized and washed into holiness 
by the sacred and divine regards of justice. I know not where else we have 
so fitting and lifelike an embodiment in act of Lovelace's immortal saying, 
" I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more." 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF V^ENICE. 1/9 

These are portents ; but yet I hope, I hope, 
They do not point on me. 

0th. Peace, and be still ! 

Des. I will so. What's the matter? 

0th. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee 
Thou gavest to Cassio. 

Des. No, by my life and soul ! 

Send for the man, and ask him. 

0th. Sweet soul, take heed. 

Take heed of perjury ; thou'rt on thy death-bed. 

Des. Ay, but not yet to die. 

0th. Yes, presently : 

Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin ; 
For to deny each article with oath 
Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception 
That I do groan withal. Thou art to die. 

Des. • Then Lord have mercy on me ! 

O^^' I say, amen. 

Des. And have you mercy too ! I never did 
Offend you in my Hfe ; never loved Cassio 
But with such general warranty of Heaven 
As I might love ; 1" never gave him token. 

0th. By Heaven, I saw my handkerchief in's hand. 
O perjured woman ! thou dost stone my heart, 
And makest me call what I intend to do 
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice : ^ 

4 Some editors have managed to stumble at this passage. The language 
is indeed compressed, but the meaning seems clear enough. Othello goes 
about the killing of his wife as an act of religion, and he fears lest her per- 
jury may excite his anger, and so corrupt the deed into an act of revenge. 
So Johnson's explanation : " Thou hardenest my heart, and makest me kill 
thee 7vith the rage of a murderer, when \ thought to have sacrificed thee 
to justice with the calmness of a priest striking a victim." 



l80 OTHELLO, ACT V- 

I saw the handkerchief. 

Des. He found it, then ; 

I never gave it him : send for him hither ; 
Let him confess a truth. 

0th. His mouth is stopp'd ; 

Honest lago hath ta'en order ^ for't. 

Des. O ! my fear interprets : what, is he dead ? 

0th. Had all his hairs been Hves, my great revenge 
Had stomach for them all. 

Des. Alas, he is betray'd, and I undone ! 

0th. Out, wanton ! weep'st thou for him to my face ? 

Des. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not ! 

0th. Down, wanton ! 

Des. Kill me to-morrow ; let me live to-night ! 

Oth. Nay, if you strive, — 

Des. But half an hour ! 

Oth. Being done, there is no pause. ^ 

Des. But while I say one prayer ! 

Oth. It is too late. \_Sinothers her. 

Emit. [Within.] My lord, my lord ! what, ho ! my lord, 
my lord ! 

Oth. What noise is this ? — Not dead ? not yet quite dead ? 
1 that am cruel am yet merciful ; 
I would not have thee linger in thy pain • 
So, so.''' 

5 In old language, to fa^e order is to adopt measures or 77iake arrange- 
ments. Shakespeare has the phrase repeatedly in that sense. 

6 Othello regards the act as done, when the conflict between his love and 
honour is fully over, his resolution finally taken, and his hand raised to strike. 
To admit any pause, were but to prolong the suffering of the victim. 

"^ At these words, the Othello of the stage is made to stab Desdemona. 
There is no such direction in any of the old copies ; but still the stage-custom 
may be right ; as, in the agony of the moment, and in his desire " not to have 



9CENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. IS I 

Emit. [ Within?^ What, ho ! my lord, my lord ! 

Oth. Who's there ? 

Eniil. [ Within.'\ O, good my lord, I would speak a word 
with you ! 

Oth. Yes ; — 'tis EmiHa ; — by-and-by. — She's dead. 
'Tis Hke she comes to speak of Cassio's death ; 
The noise was high. Ha ! no more moving? Still, 
Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good? 
I think she stirs again : no. What's best to do? 
If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife : 
My wife ! my wife ! what wife ? I have no wife. 
O, insupportable ! O heavy hour ! 
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse 
Of Sun and Moon, and that th' affrighted globe 
Should yawn at alteration. 

Emil. [ Wiihin.'\ I do beseech you 

That I may speak with you, O, good my lord ! 

Oth. I had forgot thee : O, come in, EmiHa. 
Soft ! by-and-by. — Let me the curtains draw. — 
Where art thou? {^Opens the door. 

Enter Emilia. 

What's the matter with thee now ? 
Emit. O, my good lord, yonder's foul murder done 
Oth. What, now? 
Emil. But now, my lord. 
Oth. It is the very error of the Moon ; ^ 

her linger in her pain," Othello's resolution not to shed her blood might be 
overcome. It seems more natural, too, that Desdemona should speak after 
being stabbed, than after being smothered to death. 

8 Othello says this with a tone of sarcastic or ironical scorn : " It is the 
mere wandering or ex-orbitancy of the Moon." The seeming whims and 
caprices of the Moon, that is to say, her irregularities of movement, were 



1 82 OTHELLO, ACT V, 

She comes more near the Earth than she was wont, 
And makes men mad. 

EmiL Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian 
Call'd Roderigo. 

0th, Roderigo kill'd ! 

And Cassio kill'd? 

Emil. No, Cassio is not kill'd. 

Oth. Not Cassio kill'd ? then murder's out of tune, 
And sweet revenge grows harsh. 

Des. O, falsely, falsely murder'd ! 

Emil. Alas, what cry is that? 

Oth. That ! what? 

EmiL Out, and alas ! that was my lady's voice. — 
Help ! help, ho ! help ! — O lady, speak again ! 
Sweet Desdemona ! O sweet mistress, speak ! 

Des. A guiltless death I die. 

Einil. O, who hath done 

This deed? 

Des. Nobody ; I myself. Farewell : 

Commend me to my kind lord : O, farewell ! \_Dies. 

Oth. Why, how should she be murder'd? 

Emil. Alas, who knows ? 

Oth. You heard her say herself, it was not I. 

Emil. She said so : I must needs report the truth. 

Oth. She's, like a liar, gone to burning Hell : 
'Twas I that kill'd her. 

Emil. O, the more angel she,^ 



thought to make people lunatic. This use of very for viere occurs many 
times. See King Hetiry the Fifth, page 38, note 3. 

9 Emilia evidently means that Desdemona is the more an angel for hav- 
ing spoken the falsehood in question. And surely all well-ordered minds 
must agree with her : at all events, I, for one, cannot choose, but love and 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 83 

And you the blacker devil ! 

Oth. She turn'd to folly, and she was a wanton. 

EmiL Thou dost behe her, and thou art a devil. 

Oth. She was false as water. 

EmiL Thou art rash as fire, to say 

That she was false : O, she was heavenly true ! 

Oth. O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in Hell, 
But that I did proceed upon just grounds 
To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all. 

EmiL My husband ! 

Oth. Thy husband. 

Emit. That she was false to wedlock ? 

Oth. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true, 
If Heaven would make me such another world 
Of one entire and perfect chrysohte, 
I'd not have sold her for it. 

EmiL My husband ! 

Oth. Ay, 'twas he that told me first ; 

An honest man he is, and hates the slime 
That sticks on filthy deeds. 

EmiL My husband ! 

Oth. What needs this iterance, woman? I say thy hus- 
band. 

honour Desdemona the more for that lie. For, indeed, the sweet, dear 
sufferer knows that Othello is driven onward by some monstrous delusion ; 
that some hideous inspiration has put him clean out of his native self; 
that he is sure to have the worst of it, and so is even more an object of 
compassion than herself; and the unspeakable agony legible in his features 
wrings her pure soul with a pity so intense, as to take from her all sense 
of the pangs of death : and so her last breath is hallowed with a tender 
yearning to shield him, as far as she possibly can, from the dreadful retribu- 
tions which await him, both from without and from within, when the truth 
shall be known. So deep and sacred is the head and spring of Desde- 
mona's dying falsehood ! It is a lie born of the very hohness of truth itself! 



184 OTHELLO, ACT V. 

Einil. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love ! ^^ — 
My husband say that she was false ! 

Oth. He, woman ; 

I say "thy husband : dost understand the word ? 
My friend, thy husband, honest, honest lago. 

Emil. If he say so, may his pernicious soul 
Rot half a grain a day ! he lies to th' heart : 
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain. ^^ 

Oth. Ha! ' r./.."^ 

Emil. Do thy worst : 
This deed of thine is no more worthy Heaven 
Than thou wast worthy her. 

Oth. Peace, you were best. 

Emil. Thou hast not half the power to do me harm 
As I have to be hurt. O gull ! O dolt ! 
As ignorant as dirt ! thou hast done a deed ■ — 
I care not for thy sword ; I'll make thee known. 
Though I lost twenty lives. — Help ! help, ho ! help ! 
The Moor hath kill'd my mistress ! Murder ! murder ! 

Enter Montano, Gratiano, and Iago. 

Mon. What is the matter? — How now, general ! 

Emil. O, are you come, lago? you've done well, 
That men must lay their murders on your neck. 

Gra. What is the matter? 

Emil. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man. 
He says thou told'st him that his wife was false : 
I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain. 
Speak, for my heart is full. 

10 That is, villainy has made a sport and mockery of love, by playing upon 
it, and beguiling it into a conflagration of its own home. Emilia probably 
refers to the heroine's friendly efforts in Cassio's behalf. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 85 

lago. I told him what I thought ; and told no more 
Than what he found himself was apt and true. 

Emil. But did you ever tell him she was false ? 

lago. I did. 

Emil. You told a lie ; an odious, damned lie ; 
Upon my soul, a lie ; a wicked lie ! 
She false with Cassio ! did you say with Cassio ? 

lago. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm ^^ your tongue. 

Emil. I will not charm my tongue ; I'm bound to speak ; 
My mistress here lies murder'd in her bed, — 

Moil. 



IV' 



, Heavens forfend ! 
Gra. 

Emil. — And your reports have set the murder on. 

Oth. Nay, stare not, masters : it is true, indeed. 

Gra. 'Tis a strange truth. 

Mon. O monstrous act ! 

Emil. Villainy, villainy, villainy ! 

I think upon't, I think, — I smell't ; — O villainy ! — 
I thought so then ; ^^ — I'll kill myself for grief. — 
O villainy, villainy ! 

lago. What, are you mad ? I charge you, get you home. 

Emil. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak : 
'Tis proper I obey him, but not now. — 
Perchance, lago, I will ne'er go home. 

Oth. O ! O ! O ! [Eallijig on the bed. 

Emil. Nay, lay thee down and roar ; 

For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent 

11 To charm is to hush or still as with a charm. Pliny says that favete 
Unguis was the constant exclamation before any charm was applied. 
From this circumstance the phrase to charm a tongue may have originated. 

12 That is, when she gave the handkerchief to lago ; for even then she 
appears to have suspected it was sought after for no honest purpose. 



1 86 OTHELLO, ACT V. 

That e'er did lift up eye. 

Oth. \_Rising^^ O, she was foul ! — 

I scarce did know you, uncle : there lies your niece, 
Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp'd : 
I know this act shows horrible and grim. 

Gra. Poor Desdemon ! I'm glad thy father's dead : 
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief 
Shore his old thread in twain : did he live now, 
This sight would make him do a desperate turn. 
Yea, curse his better angel from his side. 
And fall to reprobance. 

Oth. 'Tis pitiful ; but Cassio confess'd it : 
And she did gratify ^^ his amorous works 
With that recognizance and pledge of love 
Which I first gave her ; I saw it in his hand : 
It was a handkerchief, an antique token 
My father gave my mother. 

Emil. O Heaven ! O heavenly powers ! 

lago. Come, hold your peace. 

Emil. 'Twill out, 'twill out ! I peace ! 

No, I will speak as liberal as the north : ^^ 
Let Heaven and men and devils, let them all, 
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak. 

lago. Be wise, and get you home. 

Emil. I will not. 

[I AGO offers to stab Emilia. 

Gra. Fie ! 

Your sword upon a woman ? 

13 Gratify here is explained by Walker " express her gratitude for, rec- 
ompensed A singular use of the word, but involving no real obscurity. 

14 Meaning, to be sure, " I will be as free, as unrestrained, in speech, as 
the north wind is in blowing." 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. iS/ 

Emil. O thou dull Moor ! that handkerchief thou speak'st of 
I found by fortune, and did give my husband ; 
For often, with a solemn earnestness — 
More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle — 
He begg'd of me to steal it. 

lago. Villainous wanton ! 

Emil. She give it Cassio ! no, alas, I found it. 
And I did give't my husband. 

lago. Filth, thou liest ! 

Emil. By Heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen. — 
O murderous coxcomb ! what should such a fool 
Do with so good a wife ? 

Olh. Are there no stones in Heaven 

But what serve for the thunder? i^ — Precious villain ! 

[Othello offers to stab Iago, but is disarmed by Mon- 
TANO : Iago stabs Emilla, and then runs out. 

Gra. The woman falls ; sure, he hath kill'd his wife. 

Emil. Ay, ay. O, lay me by my mistress' side. 

Gra. He's gone, but his wife's kill'd. 

Mon. 'Tis a notorious villain.^ ^ Take you this weapon. 
Which I have here recover'd from the Moor : 
Come, guard the door without ; let him not pass. 
But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain. 
For 'tis a damned slave. {^Exeunt Montano and Gratiano. 

0th. I am not valiant neither. 

But every puny whipster gets my sword : 

15 T\\VindiGX-stone is the old name for thunder-(5c//. Othello means, " Has 
Heaven no bolts to spare from the work of thunder for the special purpose 
of hurling at such villains? " 

16 Iago could not be called a notorious villain in our sense of the word, 
as his villainy was not known." But Shakespeare uses the word with con- 
siderable license, and has it repeatedly very much in the sense of egregious 
or outrageous. See page i6i, note 12. 



1 88 OTHELLO, ACT V. 

But why should honour outHve honesty ? ^ '^ 
Let it go all. 

Emil. What did thy song bode, lady ? 

Hark, canst thou hear me ? I will play the swan, 
And die in music : [Sings.] Willow, willow, willow. — 
Moor, she was chaste ; she loved thee, cruel Moor ; 
So come my soul to bliss as I speak true ; 
So speaking as I think, I die, — I die. \^Dies. 

0th. I have another weapon in this chamber; 
It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper : ^^ 
O, here it is. — Uncle, I must come forth. 

Gra, [ Within?^ If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear ; 
Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer. 

Oth. Look in upon me, then, and speak with me, 
Or, naked ^^ as I am, I will assault thee. 

Re-enter Gratiano. 

Gra. What is the matter? 

Oth. Behold, I have a weapon ; 

A better never did itself sustain 
Upon a soldier's thigh : I've seen the day 

1'^ The meaning, here, is obscure, owing to an uncommon use of words. 
Honour is put for valour, as the context shows, because to be valiant was 
held the corner-stone of a man's honour. Honesty, again, has the sense of 
honour. The usage was not uncommon. So in North's Plutarch, Life of 
Coriolanus : " Thinkest thou it is not honesty for thee to grant thy mother's 
request, in so weighty a cause? " See, also, Hamlet, page 105, note 29. 

18 The way of tempering steel is by plunging it red-hot into cold water ; 
and the colder the water, the higher the temper attained. Steevens has 
shown from Martial and Justin that in Spain the waters of the Salo and the 
Chalybes, being remarkable for coldness, were used in tempering swords. 
As Toledo blades were famous all over Europe in the Poet's time, he might 
easily learn that they were of " the ice-brook's temper " without going to 
classical authorities. 

19 Naked here is unarmed, or naked of weapons. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 1 89 

That, with this Httle arm and this good sword, 

I've made my way through more impediments 

That twenty times your stop : but, O vain boast ! 

Who can control his fate ? 'tis not so now. 

Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd; 

Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,^^ 

And very sea-mark of my utmost sail. 

Do you go back dismay'd ? 'tis a lost fear : 

Man but a rush against Othello's breast. 

And he retires. Where should Othello go ? — 

Now, how dost thou look now ? O ill-starr'd wench ! 

Pale as thy smock ! when we shall meet at compt,-! 

This look of thine will hurl my soul from Heaven, 

And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl ! 

Even like thy chastity. — 

O cursed, cursed slave ! — Whip me, ye devils. 

From the possession of this heavenly sight ! 

Blow me about in winds ! ^^ roast me in sulphur ! 

Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire ! — 

O Desdemon ! dead, Desdemon ! dead ! O ! O ! 

Enter LoDOVico, Montano, Cassio carried in a Chair, and 
Officers with Iago, Prisojier. 

Lod. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man? 

20 Btitt was a term in archery for the mark, that is, the end, at which the 
shots were aimed. 

21 At compt is at the judgmeiit, the day of reckoning or of account. Shake- 
speare has the word several times thus. See Macbeth, page 72, note 13. 

22 Probably the best comment on this is in Measure for Measure, iii. I : 

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 

To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 

And blown with restless violence round about 

The pendent world. 



190 OTHELLO, ACT V. 

0th. That's he that was Othello : here I am. 

Lod. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth. 

0th. I look down towards his feet,^^ — but that's a fable. — 
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee. [ Wounds Iago. 

Lod. Wrench his sword from him. [Othello is disarmed. 

Iago. I bleed, sir ; but not kill'd. 

0th. I am not sorry neither : I'd have thee live ; 
For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die. 

Lod. O thou Othello, that wert once so good, 
Fall'n in the practice ^^ of a damned slave. 
What shall be said to thee ? 

0th. Why, any thing : 

An honourable murderer, if you will; 
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour. 

Lod. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy : 
Did you and he consent in Cassio's death ? 

0th. Ay. 

Cas. Dear general, I never gave you cause. 

Oth. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon. 
Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil 
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body ? 

Iago. Demand me nothing : what you know, you know : 
From this time forth I never will speak word. 

Lod. What, not to pray ? 

Gra. Torments will ope your lips. 

Oth. Well, thou dost best. 

Lod. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n, 

23 Alluding to the Devil's fabled cloven foot. Othello looks down towards 
lago's feet, to see if he has that sign of being a devil, but then concludes that 
he may be just as much a devil without it. In what follows, he implies that 
devils are in their nature immortal. 

'^'^ Practice, again, iox plot, stratagem, or device. See page 141, note la 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I9I 

Which, as I think, you know not. Here's a letter 
Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo ; 
And here another : the one of them imports 
The death of Cassio to be undertook 
By Roderigo. 

Oih. O villainy ! 

Cas. Most heathenish and most gross ! 

Lod. Now here's another discontented paper. 
Found in his pocket too ; and this, it seems, 
Roderigo meant t' have sent this damned villain ; 
But that, belike, lago in the interim 
Came in and satisfied him. 

Oth. O, the pernicious caitiff ! — 

How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief 
That was my wife's? 

Cas. I found it in my chamber : 

And he himself confess 'd but even now 
That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose, 
Which wrought to his desire. 

Oth. O fool ! fool ! fool ! 

Cas. There is, besides, in Roderigo 's letter, 
How he upbraids lago, that he made him 
Brave me upon the watch ; whereon it came 
That I was cast : and even but now he spake. 
After long seeming dead, lago hurt him, 
Tago set him on. 

Lod. You must forsake this room, and go with us : 
Your power and your command is taken off, 
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave. 
If there be any cunning cruelty 
That can torment him much and hold him long, 
It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest, 



192 OTHELLO, AC 

Till that the nature of your fault be known 
To the Venetian State. — Come, bring away. 

Oth. Soft you ! a word or two before you go. 
I've done the State some service, and they know't ; 
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters. 
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate. 
Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, 
Nor set down aught in malice : then must you speak 
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well ; 
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, 
Perplex'd in the extreme ;'^^ of one whose hand, 
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 
Richer than all his tribe ; ^6 of one whose subdued eyes, 
Albeit unused to the melting mood. 
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees 
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this ; 
And say besides, that in Aleppo once. 



25 That is, " but who, being wrought upon, was perplexed in the extreme." — 
Walker remarks that "perplexed, as Shakespeare understood it, meant much 
more than with us." And he cites various examples showing that the word 
was used of the most agonizing states of mind. 

26 Hereupon Coleridge has the following : " Othello wishes to excuse 
himself on the score of ignorance, and yet not excuse himself, — to excuse 
himself by accusing. This struggle of feeling is finely conveyed in the word 
base, which is applied to the rude Indian, not in his own character, but as 
the momentary representative of Othello's." — Whether Shakespeare meant 
an allusion to any particular story of an Indian, or to the Indians as gen- 
erally described, is not quite clear ; probably, the latter. So in Drayton's 
Legend of Matilda . " The wretched Indian spumes the golden ore." Also, 
in The Woman's Conquest, by Sir Edward Howard: "Behold my queen, 
who with no more concern lie cast away then Indians do a pearl, that ne'er 
did know its value." And in Habington's Castara : 

So the 7inskilfjdl Indmti those bright gems. 
Which might adde majestie to diadems, 
'Mong the waves scatters. 



SCENE II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. I93 

Where a malignant and a turban 'd Turk 

Beat a Venetian ^^ and traduced the State, 

I took by th' throat the circumcised dog, 

And smote him — thus. lS/al>s himself with a dagger?^ 

Lod. O bloody period ! 

Gra. All that's spoke is marr'd. 

Oih, I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee : no way but this, 

\^Falling upon Desdemona. 
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. \^Dies. 

Cas. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon ; 
For he was great of heart. 

Lod. \To Iagc] O Spartan dog,29 

More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea ! 
Look on the tragic loading of this bed ; 
This is thy work : — the object poisons sight ; 
Let it be hid. — Gratiano, keep ^o the house, 
And seize upon ^^ the fortunes of the Moor, 
For they succeed on you. — To you, lord governor, 
Remains the censure ^^ of this heUish villain, 
The time, the place, the torture ; O, enforce it ! 
Myself will straight aboard, and to the State 
This heavy act with heavy heart relate. \_Exeunt. 

27 It is said to have been immediate death for a Christian to strike a Turk 
in Aleppo. 

28 As Othello has been twice disarmed of his sword, first, on his offering 
to stab lago, and then on his wounding lago, we have to suppose that in 
stabbing himself he uses a dagger which he has hitherto kept concealed. 

29 The dogs of Spartan race were reckoned among those of the most fierce 
and savage kind. 

30 Keep in the sense of guard or watch. Repeatedly so. See The Win- 
ter's Tale, page 67, note 14. 

31 Seize upon here means take possession of; a law term, used thus in 
divers other places. See Much Ado, page 125, note 2. 

32 "The censure" is \\\q judgme77t or the sentencing ; as the word was 
commonly used. See page 102, note 17. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act I., Scene i. 

Page 48. Three great ones of the city, 

In personal suit to make me his lieutenant. 

Oft capp'd to him. — So the quartos. The folio has " Off-capt 
to him." This is preferred by some editors on the ground that to cap 
meant to keep the cap on. But the word was certainly used for the 
common ceremony of taking off the cap or hat as a mark of deference. 
See foot-note 2. 

P. 48. And, in conclusion, nonsuits my mediators ; 

For, certes, says he, I've already chose 

My officer. And what was he ? — So the first quarto. The 
other old copies omit "And, in conclusion." The originals have no 
indication as to how much of the passage was meant to be taken as a 
quotation from Othello ; and editors differ somewhat on that point. I 
am not sure but the word For should be so taken ; but Dyce and the 
Cambridge Editors think otherwise. 

P. 48. A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wight, — Instead of wight 
the old copies have Wife, with which nearly all are dissatisfied, and 
which cannot indeed be explained to any fitting sense but by methods 
too subtile and recondite. A good many different changes have been 
made or proposed. Tyrwhitt conjectured " a fair life" ; and Coleridge 
thinks this reading "the true one, as fitting to lago's contempt for 
whatever did not display power, and that, intellectual power." Mr. 
\Vhite reads "in a fair wise" ; not very happily, I think. Of all the 
readings hitherto offered, I prefer Capell's face. It suits the occasion 
and the speaker very well : for lago dwells much on Cassio's hand- 
someness of person ; recurs to it again and again ; and builds his 



196 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

scheme partly on that circumstance, as if he longed to make it the 
ruin of Cassio, sure enough. On the other hand, however, lago's 
thought may well have been, that Cassio was badly damaged by the 
fascinations of a handsome mistress ; thus referring to the amorous 
intrigue with Bianca, which comes out so strongly in the course of 
the play. So I am satisfied that we ought to read wight. It seems to 
me a very natural and fitting word for the place ; and, if spelt phono- 
graphically, wite, might easily be misprinted wife; and lago seems 
rather fond of using it scoffingly in reference to women. It may not 
be amiss to note further, that lago's talk about Cassio is full of con- 
tempt : he is sneering at him both as a soldier and as a man ; and 
Cassio's lickerous infatuation is an apt handle for his scorn to take hold 
of. And so both/^//ow and wife, or whatever may be the right word, 
are used by him contemptuously ; and it would be quite in character 
for him to speak of Cassio either as a coxcomb almost spoiled by his 
own good looks, or as a fellow bewitched well-nigh out of his senses 
with a fair fancy-girl. — Mr. Arrowsmith, however, contends stoutly for 
the old text. He multiplies words rather profusely in order to make 
out that the meaning is, that such a character, or such soldiership, as 
Cassio's would be almost condemned in a woman. This is indeed a 
good meaning in itself ; but to transmute the Poet's words into it, 
requires more of hermeneutical alchemy than I am master of. Fellow 
does not signify character or soldiership in any author that I am ac- 
quainted with. Besides, this meaning is sufficiently expressed in what 
follows. And Mr. Arrowsmith's interpretation would, I think, bring 
us to this : " Cassio's soldiership would be almost contemptible in an 
ordinary woman ; and he knows no more how to order a battle than 
an ordinary woman does." Surely a reading that prompts or requires 
an explanation so forced and far-fetched may well be distrusted. It 
has set me more than ever against the old text. See foot-note 4. 

P„ 49. Unless the bookish Theoric, 

Wherein the toged consuls can propose 

As masterly as he. — So the first quarto. The other old copies 
have " the Tongued Consuls," which some prefer, as agreeing better 
with the context, " mere prattle, without practice," &c. But surely 
toged is the right word. See foot-note 6. The folio has a like error in 
Coriolanus. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I97 

P. 50. And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, 

Well thrive by them, and, when they've lined their coats, 
Do themselves homage. — So Pope. The old copies have '■'■ Doi 
well thrive by them "; the transcriber's or printer's eye having probably 
caught Doe in the next line. 

Act I,, Scene 2. 

P. 59. You had been hotly call' d for ; 

When, being not at your lodging to be found. 

The Senate sent about three several quests 

To search you out. — In the first of these lines, the old copies- 
read " you have bin hotly call'd for." The correction is Lettsom's. In 
the third line, the quartos read " The Senate sent above three " ; the 
folio, " The Senate hath sent about three." 

P. 60. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. — 
Walker would read or instead oi for. Perhaps rightly, 

P. 61. Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals 

That waken motion. — So Hanmer. The old copies read 
"That we'a-^^^2 motion." Theobald printed " weaken «(7/?o;2 " ; as the 
Poet sometimes uses notion for mind or judgment. Ritson says that 
'* to weaken motiott is to impair the faculties ^\- but that surely is a 
strange use of language. See foot-note 16. 

Act I., Scene 3. 

P. 64. Have there injointed with an after fleet. — So the first 
quarto. The other old copies have " injointed them with"; thus spoil- 
ing the rhythm without helping the sense. See foot-note 7. 

P. 66. What conjuration, and what mighty magic, — 
For such proceeding I am charged withal, — 
/ won his daughter with. — So the second folio. The earlier 
editions omit with. 

P. 67. Duke. To vouch this, is no proof : 

Without more certain and more overt test. 
These are thin habits and poor likelihoods 



198 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

Of modern seeming, yon prefer against him. — So the quartos, 
except that they have seemings instead of seeming. The folio, doubt- 
less by mere accident, omits the prefix, thus making these lines a con- 
tinuation of Brabantio's speech, and then reads as follows : 

To vouch this, is no proofe, 
Without more wider, and more over Test 
Then these thin habits, and poore likely-hoods 
Of moderne seeming, do prefer against him. 

P. 68. Of my redemption thence, 

yiw^portance in ;?y/ travels' history. — So the quarto of 1630. 
The first quarto reads " And with it all my travells Historic " ; the 
foUo, " And portance in my Trave Hours historic." 



P. 71. For my own sake, jewel, 

Pm glad at soul I have no other child ; 

For thy escape would teach me tyranny, &c. — The old copies 
read " For jj/f Mr sake " ; which can nowise be made to tally with the 
context, except by taking the phrase as equivalent to on your account, — 
a sense which, to be sure, it sometimes bears. Lettsom justly observes, 
" The sense, as well as the metre, requires * For my own sake, jewel.' " 

P. 71. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence, &c. — This 
and the twenty-one following lines, down to " 'Beseech you, now pro- 
ceed to the affairs of State," are most certainly an interpolation. The 
style of them is altogether unlike that of the surrounding matter : it is 
ambitious, artificial, and studied, in the highest degree. In a dramatic 
regard, also, the lines are a sheer incumbrance, and serve no purpose 
but to interrupt and embarrass the proper course of the scene. Be- 
sides, the preceding speech of Brabantio has fully and formally prepared 
the way for the Duke's speech, " The Turk with a most mighty prepara- 
tion makes for Cyprus," &c. 

P. 72. 'Beseech you, now proceed to the affairs of State. — The 
quartos read " Beseech you now, to the affairs of the State "; the folio, 
" I humbly beseech you proceed to th' Affaires of State." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I99 

P. 73. That I did love the Moor to live with him, 
My downright violence and storm of fortunes 
May trujnpet to the world. — So the folio and the quarto of 
1630 : the quarto of 1622 has scorn instead of storm. Scorn will not 
cohere with violence, unless by making it express a quality of Desde- 
mona herself, not of her fortunes ; the sense in that case being, " my 
downright violence of behaviour, and scorn of fortune." She evidently 
means the violence and storm of fortunes which she has braved or 
enc0U7itered in marrying the Moor, and not any thing of a violent or 
scornful temper in herself. 

P. 74. Nor to comply wi' th' heat of young affects, — 
In me defunct, — but for her satisfaction. 

And to be free and bounteous to her mind. — The old copies 
read as follows : 

Nor to comply with heat the yong affects 
In my defunct, and proper satisfaction. 
But to be free, and bounteous to her minde. 

Few passages in Shakespeare have troubled the editors more than this; 
and the mass of conjectural criticism which it has evoked is almost 
enough to strike one with dismay, Upton proposed the change of my 
into me, — " In me defunct " ; and since that time the passage has com- 
monly been printed thus : 

Nor to comply with heat — the young affects 
In me defunct — and proper satisfaction ; 
But to be free and bounteous to her mind. 

But I have never been able to rest satisfied with this reading : it seems 
to me harsh and awkward beyond Shakespeare's utmost license of 
language. In the first line, the reading here given is my own. The 
Poet has a great many instances of the double contraction, wV tK for 
with the ; and in not a few cases I have found the contraction mis- 
printed with. So in The Tempest, i. I : " Bring her to Try with 
Maine-course." And again in the same scene : " Let's all sink witK 
King." In both these cases — and there are more like them — the 
sense of with the is clearly required, and accordingly I print wV th\ 
The transcriber or printer probably did not understand that point, in 
the present passage, and therefore sophisticated the text into the shape 



200 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE, 

in which it has come down to us. For the reading in the second and 
third Hnes I am indebted to Mr. P. A, Daniel ; and it seems to me 
one of the happiest emendations ever made of the Poet's text. Nor 
can the changes be justly termed violent ; as forher might easily get 
misprinted /ro/^r / and such transpositions as and and but are among 
the commonest of typographical errors. I must add that to " comply 
with one's own satisfaction " is not and never was English, as it seems 
to me. See foot-note 32. 

P. 75. When light-iving'd toys 

Of feather' d Cupid seel with wanton dullness 
My speculative and active instruments, &c. — So the quartos. 
The folio has "and offic'' d Instrument.'''' 

P. 78. She will find the error of her choice : she must have change, 
she must : therefore put money in thy purse. — So the quartos. The 
folio has " the errors of her choice," and omits " she must have change, 
she must." 

P. 79. lago. No more of drowning, do you hear? 

Rod. I am changed : I'll go sell all my land. 

lago. Go to ; farewell : put money enough in your purse. — 

[Exit RODERIGO. 

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. — So the first quarto, 
except that it lacks " I'll go sell all my land," and places the exit of 
Roderigo before the third line instead of after it. The second quarto 
omits the third hne altogether, but has " I'll go sell all my land." The 
foho has nothing of the first three lines, except " He sell all my Land." 

Act II., Scene i. 

P. 82. The ship is here put in. 

La Veronesa ; Michael Cassio, 

Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello, 

Is come on shore: the Moor himself 's at sea, &c. — In the 
second of these lines, the old copies have 'M Veronessa," and "^ 
Verennessa." This has bred some doubt whether the name referred to 



CRITICAL NOTES. 20I 

the ship or to Cassio, as if the speaker supposed him to be a Veronese. 
The substitution of La for A is Mr. P, A. Daniel's, and of course makes 
Veronese the name of the ship. In the fourth hne, the old copies 
have " the Moore hunselfe at Sea." The correction is Rowe's. 

P. 82. Thanks to the valiant t^/this warlike isle. 

That so approve the Moor ! — So the first quarto, except that 
it has worthy instead of warlike. The second quarto has the same, 
except that it omits worthy. The folio reads " Thankes ^(3Z^, the vaUant 
of the warlike Isle." 

P. 83. His bark is stoutly timber^ d, and his pilot 

Of very expert and approved allowance ; 

Therefore my hopes, not suffocate to death. 

Stand in bold cure. — The old copies read "not surfeited to 
death." As Cassio evidently has apprehensions about Othello's safety, 
how he can either be said to have any surfeit of hope, or be said not to have 
a deadly surfeit of hope, quite passes my comprehension. Knight ex- 
plains, "As "hope deferred maketh the heart sick,' so hope upon hope, 
without realization, is a surfeit of hope " ; but this seems to me 
absurdly, not to say ridiculously, forced. Cassio's meaning appears to 
be, that his hopes of the Moor's safety would have been drowned to 
death in that terrible sea, but for the strong ship and good pilot. 
Johnson, not being able to understand how hope could be increased till 
it were destroyed, conjectured " not forfeited to death." I was for a 
while in doubt whether to read " not suffocate to death " or, " not sick 
yet unto death " ; but on the whole preferred the former as involving 
somewhat less of change, and as being perhaps rather more in Shake- 
speare's manner. See foot-note 8. 

P. 84. One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens. 

And in tK essential vesture of creation 

Does tire the ingener. — The quartos read " Does bear all 
excellency^'' except that the second has an instead of all. This read- 
ing has been justly set down as " flat and unpoetical." The folio reads 
" Do's tyre the Ingeniver.^^ The last word is most likely a misprint 
for ingener. See foot-note 9. 



202 OTHELLO, THP: MOOR OF VENICE;. 

P. 84. Great God, Othello guard. 

And szvell his sail with Thine own powerful breath, &c. — The 
old copies have " Great JoveP " For this absurdity," says Malone, " I 
have not the smallest doubt that the Master of the Revels, and not our 
Poet, is answerable." The same " absurdity " occurs in several other 
places. See note on " God and my stars be praised," &c., Twelfth 
Night, page 145. 

P. 88. Is he not a most profane and liberal censmer? — So Theobald 
and Collier's second folio. The old copies have Counsailor instead of 
censurer. 

P. 93. If this poor hxdich of Venice, whom Iita.^h 

For his quick hunting, stand the putting-on, &c. — So Collier's 
second folio. All the old copies have trash instead of brach ; vi^hile, 
instead of trash, the first quarto has crush, and the folio and second 
quarto have trace. Theobald reads " This poor brach of Venice, whom 
I traced See foot-note 34. 

Act II., Scene 3. 

P. 99. / fear the trust Othello puts in him, &c. — So Capell and 
Lettsom. The old copies have " puts him in.^^ 

P. loi. Have you forgot all sense of place and duty ? Hold ! 

The general speaks to you ; hold, hold, for shame ! — The old 
copies read " all place of sence, and duty." They also print the first 
Hold at the beginning of the second line, thus : " Hold. The Generall 
speaks to you : " &c. 

P. 103. Shall lose me. What! in a town with war 

Yet wild, the people'' s hearts brimful of fear, 

To manage private and domestic quarrel, 

In night, and on the court of guard and safety ! — In the first 
and second of these lines, the old copies read " in a Towne of warre. 
Yet wilde," &c. But what is a town of war ? or what can the phrase 
mean? The reading in the text is Mr. P. A. Daniel's. Of course it 



CRITICAL NOTES. 203 

means " in a town yet wild with war." — To complete the metre of the 
first line, Capell printed " Shall loosen me." But that, I think, defeats 
the right sense. Hanmer reads " What, and in," &c. But should it 
not rather be " What! even in a town," &c.? — In the last hne, also, 
the old copies read " on the Court and guard of safety," Corrected 
by Theobald. 

P. 103. If, partially affined, or leagued in office, &c. — The old 
copies have league instead of leagued. 

P. 104. And Cassio following with determined stvord 

To execute upon him. — The old copies have "Cassio following 
him " / — probably an accidental repetition from the next line. Cor- 
rected by Pope. 

P. 105. Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon. — 

[ To MoNTANO, who is led off. 
— The old copies here add to the text " Lead him off," but have 
no stage-direction. Doubtless, as Malone thought, those words were 
meant for a stage-direction, and got misprinted as part of the text. A 
very frequent error. 

P. 109. Myself the while to draw the Moor apart, &c. — So Theo- 
bald. The old copies have " Myselfe a while," and " Myselfe awhile." 

Act III., Scene 3. 

P. 113. O sir, / thank you. You do love my lord: &c. — So the 
quartos. The folio reads "/ knowH: I thanke you," which some 
editors prefer, I do not understand why. 

P, 115. Save that, they say, the wars must make examples 

Out of the best. — So Singer. The old copies have " Out of 
her best." Rowe printed " Out of their best." 

P. 116. Or sue to you to do peculiar profit 

To your own person. — So Pope. The old copies read " to do 
a peculiar profit," &c. We have many like instances of a palpably 
interpolated. 



204 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

P. 117, Think, my lord ! — By Heaven, he echoes me. 
As if there were sojne monster in his thought 
Too hideous to be shown. — So the first quarto. The foHo reads 
"Alas thou ecchd'st me; As if there were some Monster in /^j thought," 
&c,; the second quarto, " Why dost thou ecchoe me," &c. It is, not 
easy to choose between these three readings, but I am strongly inclined 
to prefer the last. 



P. 119. As, I confess, it is my nature's plague 
To spy into abuses, and oh my jealousy 

Shapes faults that are not, ^z. — I here follow the reading of 
the quartos, with which the folio agrees, except that it has of instead 
of oft. It has been proposed to read ^' of my jealousy," and change 
shapes into shape. At first sight, this is plausible, as it satisfies the 
grammar perfectly. But jealousy is itself, evidently, the " nature's 
plague " of which lago is speaking. So that the sense would be, " It 
is my nature's plague to spy into abuses, and of my nature'' s plague to 
shape faults that are not " ; which comes pretty near being nonsense. 
On the other hand, if we read, " It is my nature's plague to spy into 
abuses, and oft my nature's plague shapes faults that are not," the 
language is indeed not good, but the sense is perfect. 



P. 120. It is the green-eyed monster, which doth make 

The meat it feeds on. — So Hanmer and a large majority of 
the editors since his time. The old text has mocke instead of make, and 
several recent editors have gone back to the former. But that read- 
ing seems to me a stark absurdity ; while, on the other hand, there 
cannot well be a truer description of jealousy than that it creates its 
own food. To be sure, some manage to rack and extort from mock a 
certain dim and vague show of fitness : for so minds " green in judg- 
ment " are apt to be infected, as in my " salad days " I was myself, 
with a fond conceit of ingenuity that will undertake to explain any 
thing ; but, as men grow and ripen into a love of plainness and sim- 
plicity, all such superfineness of explanation appears to them simply 
ridiculous. Of late years, Shakespeare has suffered a good deal from 
these exquisite tormentors of words. See foot-note 16. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 205 

P. 132. And, being troubled ivith a raging tooth, 
I could not sleep. There are a kind of men 
So loose of soul, that in their sleeps will mutter 
Of their affairs : one of this kind is Cassio. — So Walker. The 

old copies have a different arrangement of the lines, and are without 

Of in the last line. 

P. 1 33. If it be that, or any that was hers. 

It speaks against her with the other proofs. — The old copies 
read " or any, it was hers." Corrected by Malone. 

P. 133. Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow Hell ! — So the folio. 
The quartos have "from thy hollow celV ; which is strangely pre- 
ferred by several editors. To speak of a hollow cell as the abode of 
vengeance seems very tame. Besides, as Othello has just blown all his 
love to Heaven, harmony of thought and language seems to require 
that he should invoke revenge from Hell. See foot-note 52. 

P. 133. Whose icy current and compulsive course 

Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on, &c. — So the quarto 
of 1630. The passage is not in the first quarto; and the folio reads 
"Nev'r keepes retyring ebbe, but keepes due on." Collier's second 
folio has " Ne'er knows retiring ebb." 

P. 134. And to obey shall be in me remorse. 

What bloody work soe'er. — So the quartos. The folio has " What 
bloody business ever." 

Act III., Scene 4. 

P. 140. That nor my service past, nor present sorrow, 

JVor purposed merit in futurity. Sec. — So Walker. The old 
copies have Sorrowes instead of sorrow. The confounding of plurals 
and singulars is very frequent. 

Act IV., Scene i. 

P. 147. Or I shall say you'' re all-in-all one spteen. 

And nothing of a man. — So Lettsom. The old copies read 
"all in all in Spleene." Capell printed " all in all a spleen." 



206 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

P. 152, God save the zuor thy general. — So the quarto of 1622. The 
other old copies read " Save you worthy Generall." Probably, in this 
instance, the former reading escaped the Master of the Revels. 



Act IV., Scene 2. 

P. 157. Had it pleased Heaven 

To try me with affliction ; had He rain'd 
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head ; &c. — So the 
quartos. The folio reads "had they rain'd," &c. In support of the 
latter, Dyce shows that the Poet sometimes uses Heaven as a collec- 
tive noun ; but he does not show that he constantly uses it so. 

P. 158. A fixed figure for the time of scorn 

To point his slow unmoving finger at. — So the quartos, except 
that the fii-st \va.% fingers instead oi finger, and that both add, after at, 
'' — oh, oh." The folio has "The fixed figure," and "To point his slow, 
and moving finger at." The passage has elicited a good deal of com- 
ment, and various changes have been proposed, of which the only one 
that seems to me much worth pausing upon is Hunter's, " The fixed 
figure <y the time,y^r scorn To point," &c. I add White's comment 
on the second line : " Some have chosen the reading of the folio, on 
the ground that if the finger of scorn be 'slow,' it must move, and 
therefore ' unmoving ' is an incongruous epithet ! But surely the 
finger of scorn is unmoving, because it does not move from its object, 
but points at him fixedly and relentlessly^ " See foot-note 4. 

P. 160. How have I been behaved, that he m-ight stick 

The smallest opinion oti my great'st abuse? — So the first quarto. 
The other old copies have least itiisuse instead of great'' st abuse. But 
we cannot take on here as equivalent to of for the connection is stick 
on, and not opinion on ; so that least does not give the right sense. 
See foot-note 9. 

P. 162. If e^er my will did trespass Against his love, 

Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed ; &c. — So the 
quarto of 1 630. The passage is not in the first quarto ; and the folio has 



CRITICAL NOTES. 20^ 

" discourse of thought." With the latter there is no fault to be found 
on the score of language ; for Shakespeare elsewhere has " discourse 
of reason," which is but an equivalent phrase. See Hamlet, page 63, 
note T^T^. But the quarto reading is, I think, more in accordance with 
the solemn and impressive particularity of the speaker's asseveration 
of her innocence. And it may well be understood as referring to the 
three forms of sin, "by thought, word, and deed," specified in the old 
catechisms and the eucharistical confession of the Church. 

P. 163. I think it is scurvy, and begin to Jind myself io^^^^d in it. — 
So all the old copies. Modern editions generally change fopfd to 
fobfd, and perhaps rightly, as io fob is to cheat, io put off by a trick, to 
evade ; a sense that well fits the occasion. See, however, foot-note 18. 

Act IV., Scene 3. 

P. 166. My mother had a maid calVd Barbara. — The old copies 
have Barbary and Barbarie ; and so the name was probably pro- 
nounced. Many people now pronounce Martha as if it were spelt 
Marthy. 

P. 167, And she died singing it. Pve much to-do 

Not to go hang 7ny head all at one side, &c. — So Hamner and 
Collier's second folio : Theobald also conjectured the same. The old 
copies have " But to go hang," &c. With But, the construction is, 
" I've much to-do to do any thing but to go hang " ; which, to say the 
least, is exceedingly awkward and harsh. We have many instances of 
but and not misprinted for each other. 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 171. No, he must die: be't so; I hear him coming. — So the 
quartos. The folio has "But so." Dyce conjectures "but soft! ) 
hear him coming." And so I suspect it should be. 

Act v.. Scene 2. 

P. 177, Put out the light, — and then put out thy light, &c. — The 
old copies read " and then put out the light." The reading in the text 



208 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

is Hanmer's, and is, I think, fully justified by the context; as we have, 
just below, "but once put out thy light,'"' and "That can thy light 
relume." 

P. 1 80. 0th. It is too late. [Smothers her. 

Emil. \^Withini\ My lord, t?iy lord! what, ho! &c. — So 
the folio and the second quarto. The first quarto inserts between these 
two speeches '■'Des. O Lord, Lord, Lord." 

P. 181. The noise was high. — Ha ! no more moving? still. 

Still as the grave. — So Walker. The first still is not in the 
old copies. The metre certainly wants it, and the sense even more, 
perhaps, than the metre. 

P. 1 8 1 . O, my good lord, yonder"* s foul murder done ! — The old copies 
have murders instead of murder. The correction is Theobald's. 

P. 187. Are there no stones in Heaven 

But what serve for the thunder ? — Precious villain ! — So 
the first quarto and the folio. The second quarto has " Pernicious 
villain." And so I more than suspect we ought to read; for there is 
ground, surely, for Lettsom's remark, that " * Precious villain ' is more 
in the style of Cloten than of Othello." 

P. 189. O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon ! dead! O! O! — So the 
folio. The quartos have the line as follows : 

O Desdemona, Desdemona, dead, O, o, o. 

P. 191. Oth. 6) villainy! 

Cas. Most heathenish and most gross! — The 

old copies have Villaine instead of villainy. Walker says, " Villainy 
of course ; and so also Ritson." 

P. 191. Ajtd he himself confess'' d but even now 

That there he dropfd it for a special purpose, &c. — The first 
quarto reads " confest it even now " ; the other old copies, " confest it 
but even now." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 209 

P. 192. Of one whose hand, 

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 

Richer than all his tribe; &c. — So the quartos. The folio has 
Judean instead of Indian. See foot-note 26. 

P. 192. Drop tears as fast as- the Arabian trees 

Their medicinal gu7n. — So the quartos. The folio has Med- 
icinable. 



JAN 2S mi 



